"These [current] guys have never hit fliers in their lives."

Steve Elling looks at Jack Nicklaus's endorsement of the groove rule change after initially dismissing the grooves rollback as "throwing a deck chair off the Titanic."

Nicklaus said he had a lively conversation on that subject with a fairly decorated fellow traveler, Tom Watson, at a tournament function this week, in fact.

"Watson was saying last night that he had been fiddling around with some new clubs and played with them most this year, actually, with the new grooves," Nicklaus said. "He said, 'Man, did I hit some fliers last week.'

"These [current] guys have never hit fliers in their lives. They are going to say, 'I don’t want to do that anymore. I am going to hit the ball in the fairway.' Or they are going to have to learn how to play fliers."

"Tiger has played no role that I'm aware of"

Jerry Stewart on the AT&T's move from Poppy Hills to MPCC's Shore Course.

Other speculation as for the change revolves around Tiger Woods. Woods, who earlier this year announced a new deal with AT&T, hasn't played in the Pro-Am since 2002. Nutt dismissed any connection between the move and Woods, at least from the Foundation's standpoint.
"Tiger has played no role that I'm aware of," Nutt said.

Ron Kroichick notes this about Poppy Hills:

At any rate, the unfortunate element of Wednesday's announcement is the impact on the Northern California Golf Association, which owns Poppy Hills. The NCGA is a strident advocate of public golf, especially through its popular Youth on Course program designed to get kids involved in the game.

The NCGA had a two-year rolling contract for Poppy to remain in the AT&T rotation. Tournament officials renewed the deal in December, meaning they apparently were committed to Poppy through 2011. Don't be surprised, then, if the NCGA challenges the legality of this move.

"We're disappointed and we don't really understand it, because we have a contract," NCGA president Michael Hexner said. "If there are issues with Poppy Hills, why didn't they mention it in December? Why didn't they mention it two or three years ago?

"We're the only course (in the tournament) people can play for $55. We're the Harding Park or Bethpage Black of these venues. We're kind of stunned they would walk away from the course that provides all the volunteers for the tournament."

You may recall I reported a while ago that Tiger was pushing for a move away from Poppy Hills. I also noted in that post--which dealt with Nicklaus putting down Tiger's ability to speak "intelligently" about design--that the Bear should be careful because Tiger did not look favorably on Jack's new Dove Mountain course in Tucson, home to the match play.

Ah how times have progressed...they are currently rebuilding most of the greens at Dove Mountain.

I wonder if Jack and Tiger talked about that Wednesday? Intelligently, of course.

"I didn't even yell fore"

Bob Harig explains the genesis of Wednesday's one-off, dare I say historic skins game featuring Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods:

Morgan Stanley is meeting its financial obligations to the tournament, but company representatives decided to downplay their role. Included was canceling the Wednesday pro-am that was to be filled with only Morgan Stanley people.

Their loss was golf's gain.

Stewart Cink will likely post more about the round with Jack, Tiger and Kenny, but he appeared to get in at least one on-course Tweet, melting hearts at LPGA headquarters.

To the fella who confused me with Camilo, "Mucho gracias amigo!"

Steve Elling shares this from the rainy round:

While the players were warming up, Nicklaus was hitting chip shots around the practice putting green as Woods was rolling putts nearby. A little too closely nearby, as it turned out.

The Bear shanked a wedge shot and the ball rolled over and nearly hit Woods in the foot, causing huge laughs from everybody.

"I didn't even yell fore," Nicklaus said.

There was plenty of kibitzing between the pair about their kids, golf course design and other topics as they walked along during the nine-hole match. When Nicklaus rolled in a birdie putt to win the first two skins, he laughed and slapped high-fives along the gallery ropes, shrugging as he said, "even a blind squirrel."

Jack Says It Was All The Tour's Fault!

I love starting the day off with a big chuckle and how can you not giggle reading Doug Ferguson's story about last year's over-the-top setup at Muirfield Village. I only laugh because I know from talking to various folks at the tour that there are two courses where they have much less course setup say: Bay Hill and Muirfield Village.

And of course, there is that evidence of Jack's bunker furrowing concept to reinforce his role. And his hatred of flogging. And there's that minor detail that Phil Mickelson would have skipped the week regardless of his wife's health, all because of the excessive setup ploys.

Ah...Slugger's taking one for the team...

"We were over the top last year," said Slugger White, the PGA TOUR official in charge of setting up the course.

The fault fell to Jack Nicklaus -- at least that's the perception of most players.

After all, this is the course Jack built for a tournament he has hosted since 1976. Nicklaus built his career around the majors, and he wants the Memorial to be the next best thing.

But even Nicklaus was troubled by the high grass, not to mention the complaints.

"The one thing I never liked as a golfer was hack-out rough," Nicklaus said Tuesday. "I've always felt that if you put the ball in the rough, there should be some chance of playing a shot to reach the green, but not be able to control the ball like you would normally. I think recovery is a beautiful part of the game."

Just not on my course!

"I don't think Mr. Nicklaus or the TOUR liked what came out of last year," said Steve Rintoul, the TOUR official who oversaw the course setup this year. "The rules committee, in conjunction with Jack, thought it better to have shorter rough."

Ultimately, the TOUR has the final word in how the course plays.

But if Nicklaus is the one taking the heat whenever someone complains, then why not just take full authority of his golf tournament?

Nicklaus chuckled at the suggestion.

"We are part of the TOUR," he said. "What I want to do is cooperate the best I can, have middle round on what I want to do and what the players like. My feeling is, do I want them to not like it? Of course not. I want everybody to be happy, everybody to enjoy it. But not everyone thinks the way I think. I'm 69. Guys are 40 years younger than I am, or more. They haven't been brought up the way I was.

"It's more my job to adjust to them than their job to adjust to me."

Uh huh.

"So you feel for Jack a little bit because you're not allowed to do it any more."

I thought Geoff Ogilvy was kind (and insightful) on the subject of what appears to be another Jack Nicklaus design players don't care for. Geoff's typically original analysis:

Q. Tiger earlier in the week said these greens were quite severe. What's the difference between big curvaceous greens like these and big curvy greens like at Augusta National?

GEOFF OGILVY: The greens at Augusta look like they're supposed to -- they look like -- they look right. Most of them are built on the hill that they're on, their natural looking slopes, it doesn't look like people moved too much dirt to make those greens.

These ones look a little contrived. And they're a bit -- Augusta has the bigger sweeping kind of more natural looking hills. These ones have a few little steep things and such.
(Laughter.)

But it's probably almost genius greens. I mean, all the best golf courses in the world have really slopey greens. So you can see what he's trying to do. Greens are getting too flat probably because greens are getting too fast. You couldn't design Augusta right now, every player would walk off if we walked into Augusta the first time we had ever seen it, played a brand new golf course, we would all quit after nine holes. We would all say, "I can't play this, it's ridiculous."

So you feel for Jack a little bit because you're not allowed to do it any more. But they look -- I don't mind big slopes. I just don't -- they just don't look as natural as Oakmont or Saint Andrews or Augusta like the truly natural slopey ones.

So he's really saying that an architect can still pull off big, sloping greens if the contours are built properly.

Now, the three courses cited by Ogilvy all had one thing in common at the time of their creation: they were not constrained by USGA spec greens.  Augusta has since gone to USGA greens and according to the people I trust who played them before and after, have lost a great deal of their character in the way of neat little bumps and rolls.

Not that this is a legitimate defense of poor green design, but it is something to keep in mind as the players pile on The Ritz Carlton Golf Club at Dove Mountain. (And if they were lukewarm while at the tournament, it only gets worse when they get off property! Playing PGA National this week won't help.)

"My 10-year-old Griffin now plumb-bobs. I go, 'Dude, what are you doing?'"

Cameron Morfit conducts an entertaining Q&A with Steve Flesch, covering all sorts of good stuff.

Let's talk Tour policy. You've slammed course setups. What's your beef?

It's the same every week. Having every par-3 at 230 yards is boring, as is having the rough at five inches. The greens don't always have to be 12 on the Stimpmeter. They water the fairways and around the greens, forcing you to hit a high spinny shot in. We've gotten away from the fact that golf can be played more than one way.

But that's exactly how Tiger and Phil and most of the top players like to hit the ball. Maybe the rest of you guys should learn to live with it.

But let's not set up every course so it's like a major. The public wants to see us make birdies, so let's set up the courses so we can display our skills and show everybody how good we are.

Seems the boys really are in love with the Memorial these days.

Jack Nicklaus upset the pros when he toughened Muirfield Village for The Memorial and furrowed the bunkers. Who's going to call up Jack and say, "Enough!"?

It's hard. Jack should have his input, but is it really in the best interest to play the course like that? That was eight-inch rough that obviously hadn't been topped off the day before the tournament, as Jack indicated in the papers.

Are you calling Jack Nicklaus a liar?

No, I'm not, but it was eight inches on Monday and it wasn't touched the whole week. Whether it's the tournament director or whatever, don't tell us it's four-and-a-half-inch rough. I can put my foot in it and see it's over my shoes. It's the same at Arnold's event. That rye-grass rough is sticky and it's five inches long. Muirfield is one of my favorite courses, but from the first time I played it in '98 to 2008, it's gotten harder, not better. The greens are 14 on the Stimpmeter and they're not big; do you need ruts in the bunkers, too?

This may be the first time someone dared to note the issue for Phil Mickelson and his joint instructors Butch Harmon and Dave Pelz.

Your fellow lefty Mickelson had a quiet 2008. What's wrong with him?

Phil Mickelson is fantastic. I have learned so much from watching him play. He knows I respect his game, and I don't want to say anything that would upset him, but right now I think he's got two different kinds of coaches. I worked with Butch Harmon for five years, and his way of thinking about the game is a lot different than how Dave Pelz is. Dave's very analytical, very scientific, and everybody respects that. Phil is trying to find a balance between two methods that seem to pull him in different directions.

And of course, slow play...

What else is on the PAC's radar?

Pace of play. There are a dozen guys out here who are habitually slow. It's not that our fine structure isn't strong enough — it's that our officials should be more assertive. We all know who's slow and who's not, and while half of the slow guys say they want to get faster, the other half say, "I don't care if I'm slow or not." Well you know what? You've got 144 guys out there that week and most of them feel you're disrespecting them by taking that attitude. You have 40 seconds to hit the shot, and if you can't do it, you're not playing out here.

Is this why weekend golfers seem to think a glacial pace is okay?

My 10-year-old Griffin now plumb-bobs. I go, "Dude, what are you doing?" He goes, "I don't know, I see you guys doing it on TV." That's exactly why it's wrong for us to be playing that slowly. 

“We do say he created the course"

The Perthshire Advertiser's Gordon Bannerman reports on the new design credit for Jack Nicklaus's Gleneagles Centenary Course, home to the 2014 Ryder Cup. You may recall that players were not too fond of David Kidd's redo. Include Jack in that category.

But it has emerged that Nicklaus isn’t impressed with Gleneagles playing around with his original design, which opened on the “finest parcel of land I have ever been given to work with” back in 1993.

The Golden Bear is growling over Gleneagles tampering with the original design without his knowledge or input. It barely rates a mention on his website, which profiles the many Nicklaus Signature courses which have emerged around the globe.

Now, instead of billing it as a course designed by Jack Nicklaus, Gleneagles flag it up as being “created” by the golfing legend.

A spokeswoman for Gleneagles said: “Jack Nicklaus designed the course for us in the early 90s.

“In the last few years and in the build up to being the hosts for the Ryder Cup, we have had another designer tweak a few holes.

“We do say he created the course and we have an ongoing relationship with the Jack Nicklaus organisation.”

"Drop your putter, dig your cell phone out of your golf bag, and call 1.877.9NM.GIFT."

I would not have believed this one if not for Ryan Herrington's item in this week's Golf World Bunker. There's selling out, there's whoring out and then there's another indescribable level of unfathomable desperation as evidenced from item in the new Neiman Marcus catalog...

Jack Nicklaus Custom Backyard Course Package

Go ahead, re-read it. Yes, THE Jack Nicklaus, Golfer of the Century turned world-renowned course designer. Yep, your very own custom-designed three-hole course. Uh-huh, for your backyard. Jack will study topography, aerial photos, and landscape maps for the site, then send his team to survey the property. He'll create a formal design plan and color renderings for up to three holes and a practice area, depending on the size of your back forty. Your construction crew builds from it, with supervision from Jack's world-class design team (the same team pursued by premier club owners worldwide). Now to sink the winning putt; when your course is finished, the Golden Bear himself will stop by to play the first round with you, personally. More? He'll sign his club and ball for your collection and throw in a custom set of Nicklaus clubs, including a personalized bag.

Drop your putter, dig your cell phone out of your golf bag, and call 1.877.9NM.GIFT.

Jack Nicklaus Custom Backyard Course Package
Price Beginning at $1,000,000.00*
OCBF9_NMO3603
*Construction and site preparation costs not included.

For $1,000,000 you get some plans and a site visit? So, how is that different from a normal Nicklaus design?

No word yet on whether Neiman's new favorite customer will be buying one of these for Todd.

"We're so heavily involved in the project, whereas in some others we've been hired guns."

Thomas Bonk talks to Jack Nicklaus about Quivira Los Cabos, "a branded Nicklaus oceanfront community, two Nicklaus golf courses and a Nicklaus golf club in Los Cabos, Mexico."

Apparently this will be like the Bear's Club, whatever that means.

This one is special, Nicklaus said. "We're so heavily involved in the project, whereas in some others we've been hired guns."