46 Inches: USGA, R&A Announce Local Rule Option For The Elites

As I wrote yesterday in a Quadrilateral for all to see, the most interesting news in capping non-putter length clubs at 46 inches is not what it will do to distances, but what this means for distance politics.

Besides setting a precedent of different rules for “those running professional or elite amateur golf competitions”, we now get to see whether the “Model Local Rule” is adopted. Already, reports GolfDigest.com’s Mike Stachura, the PGA Tour has signed on despite what will amounts to a mid-season rule change, citing low usage of drivers longer than 46 inches. That’s a huge Rules of Golf endorsement from the Global Home. And while they won’t say it, this is bifurcation of the rules. Yes, the big, nasty B word!

Next up, we’ll see what Augusta National, the PGA of America and various other tours say. Golf Digest reached out for comment and only the PGA of America replied, saying a decision will be made before their 2022 events.

For those keeping track of such things, the 48-to-46 capping came six months and one day after the end comment period ended (it had been extended a month to April). A similar comment period ends on a range of more substantial distance questions posed by the USGA and R&A, so put Tuesday May 3, 2022 down in your calendars.

Here is the rule, length tolerance and penalty language.

For Immediate Release:

THE USGA AND THE R&A ANNOUNCE NEW MODEL LOCAL RULE OPTION FOR LIMITING CLUB LENGTH

LIBERTY CORNER, N.J. and ST. ANDREWS, Scotland (Oct. 12, 2021) – The USGA and The R&A have announced that a new Model Local Rule (MLR G-10) will be available beginning on January 1, 2022 to provide those running professional or elite amateur golf competitions the option of limiting the maximum length of a golf club (excluding putters) to 46 inches. 

The proposal was announced in February 2021, which opened a notice-and-comment period to allow the industry the opportunity to provide feedback as part of the equipment rulemaking procedures. The comments received from the golf industry, including players, professional tours and equipment manufacturers, were carefully considered before the decision to proceed with the new MLR was reached.

New acronym alert!

The USGA and The R&A issued an Area of Interest notice in 2014 indicating that research was being conducted into the impact of club lengths of more than 48 inches on hitting distance and whether that limit remained appropriate.

Only took seven years to reach the finish line…

A proposed change to the limit was subsequently put forward in 2016 but was put on hold in 2017 when the Distance Insights project got underway.

Mike Whan, chief executive officer of the USGA, said, “We’ve worked closely with our industry partners to ensure the future for golf remains strong. Admittedly, this is not the ‘answer’ to the overall distance debate/issue, but rather a simple option for competitive events. It’s important to note that it is not a ‘Rule of Golf,’ and as such, it is not mandated for the average, recreational golfer. Rather, this is an available tool for those running competitive events.” 

Martin Slumbers, chief executive of The R&A, said, “We have taken time to consult fully with the golf industry, including players, the main professional tours and equipment manufacturers, and have considered their feedback carefully. We believe this is the right thing for the game at this time and will provide tournament organizers with the flexibility to choose for themselves within the framework of the Rules. We are working hard to maintain an open, collaborative and considered dialogue with these key stakeholders as we continue to evolve the Equipment Standards Rules to ensure they reflect the modern game.”

And they still won’t be happy.

The proposals submitted in February for changes to the testing method for golf balls and the testing tolerance for spring-like effect are still under consideration. The governing bodies plan to consider feedback on these proposals in line with the responses to the broader Area of Interest – Research Topics notification, which are due by November 2.

"Up to 1 million gallons of water...a night? That’s par for some desert golf courses"

Influential LA Times columnist Steve Lopez has set his sights on water usage by Coachella Valley courses and shares the concerns of residents Doug Thompson and wife Robin Kobaly. It’s not the usual golf-is-bad piece since all involved acknowledge golf’s role in the region stretching from Palm Springs to Indio. And Lopez gets some great info into the piece from Craig Kessler of the SCGA.

He notes one course as being pleased to have gotten their usage down to numbers like 1 million gallons a night of water, and while drought issues are of concern, there is also a view that residents are paying more than they should have to.

“Absolutely, there is an inequity,” said Johnson, and that, in effect, residential users “subsidize the infrastructure used to get water to golf courses.” Johnson, a golfer, said he used to play at a La Quinta course where “they were irrigating areas that weren’t even in play,” and watering sand traps, as well.

So why not institute tiered pricing for golf and ag, same as for residential users?

I’ll be watching to see how that goes, but it’s worth noting that three of the five members of the agency’s board of directors are in the agriculture industry. Water and oil don’t mix, but in California, water and politics always do.

But the real kicker—spoiler alert—is how Lopez ends the piece.

Thompson and Kobaly, who aren’t golfers, have a suggestion. They’ve been looking into links-style golf courses, which are common in other countries and use far less water. You tee off on a patch of green and you putt on a patch of green, but most of the area in between is natural and not irrigated.

“I’ve got nothing against golf,” Thompson said. “But they’ve got to find a different way of doing it.”

Hey, links style. They may be onto something there!

Shame they didn’t dare suggest that golf reduce its footprint and consider dialing back back distance. Maybe after more research?

NGF: "A New Norm, Or An Old Norm?"

Joe Beditz and the National Golf Foundation continue to monitor the state of golf, the business side and pandemic-related upswing. His latest looks at the numbers of golfers per 18-hole course showing a balance “that existed 20 years ago, when golf courses were more economically successful, as a whole, than they’d been over the past decade or so.”

Given golf’s trajectory pre-pandemic and the sport being one of the few industries to experience a deceleration of trends, he notes the increase in wealth as a huge driving factor. But there was also this:

And there’s one other very important consideration: a decidedly positive media narrative about golf in non-endemic publications, such as Esquire, Adweek and the Wall Street Journal. It was only a short time ago that headlines blared golf was doomed. Today, pundits are raving about golf’s renaissance like they haven’t since Tiger’s heyday. We’ve assembled some of the more notable positive stories about golf, which you can read here. 

I don’t miss reading and posting all of the stories declaring bowling, cycling, hiking or bowling-while-hiking as the “new golf “.

"[Long Drive] is a sport built solely on the outcome of one very specific physical movement in the same way javelin or shot put or high jump are"

My State of the Game colleague Rod Morri was not as caught up in last week’s Long Drive championship and Bryson DeChambeau’s inspirational top 8 performance. While Long Drive is a fascinating way to show off alternative skills and real athleticism given what goes into it, Morri’s reminder is a good table setter for the upcoming “skill” discussion (assuming the governing bodies decide to do anything significant, a huge if at this point).

Morri writes for Golf Australia:

As dumb as it sounds to say out loud, there are a few things that make golf ‘golf’ and one of the most important is the multi-dimensional nature of the skills required to play it.

From the 300 yard tee shot to the three foot putt (and everything in between), the game is an endless test of fine motor skills, raw power and the ability to think critically.

Most sports don’t have anywhere near as many layers as golf and those that do tend to have teams made up of specialists in different areas.

Cricket has predominantly either batters or bowlers with genuinely world class all-rounders being the smallest group in the game.

Long drive has almost none of this. It is a sport built solely on the outcome of one very specific physical movement in the same way javelin or shot put or high jump are.

It lacks all – or more accurately, any – of the nuance of golf where the outcome of any given shot accounts for only a small part of the whole.

Basically, a dumbing down of the sport. But isn’t that pretty much where golf leadership wants the sport to go in hopes of reaching a younger audience? So why would they do anything?

Cookie Jar On The Kummel Crisis

There’s a headline from deep sleep dream. And while crisis might be a strong word given other options for post (or gulp, pre-round) sip of Kummel, Cookie Jar Golf’s Sam Williams has filed a lengthy explanation about the possible end of Wolffschmidt’s version of a stout beverage that’s been the preferred option for a long time at the UK’s most famous clubs.

In recent weeks, reports have been coming into us from all corners of the U.K. that clubs are unable to secure orders on further stock of Wolfschmidt, amid rumours that the Danish company has ceased production. Despite a lot of phone calls and various efforts to establish contact with the brand, no official statement has been received however we can confirm that future orders on the product are no longer possible. 

Whether that is due to a decision by the company to remove distribution in the U.K. or if the product itself is no longer to be produced at all is not known, and the details behind it seem to be extremely vague. 

Multiple conversations with stockists in London & Edinburgh, as well as calls to some of the clubs who are the biggest consumers of the product have failed to yield anything concrete as to why the decision has been taken, however it is apparent that future orders will not be possible.  

From Herbert Warren Wind’s New Yorker story about the President’s Putter (thanks reader D for the tip):

When I entered the big room, shortly after one o’clock, perhaps thirty members of the Society were wearing the club tie—two narrow stripes of light blue bordering a wider stripe of dark blue on a field of grass green. Everyone seemed to be in a merry, chaffing mood. For example, I heard a man near me say to a friend, “I gather putted very frequently this morning.” The rejoinder went: “I’m lying doggo. Watch me when it counts.” I was digesting this animated scene when Gerald Micklem, the current president of the O. & C.G.S. and one of my oldest friends in British golf, came striding into the room en route from the ninth green to the tenth tee, and threw down a fast kummel. (Kummel has long been a favorite drink of English golfers, because there is an old wives’ tale to the effect that it is the best antidote in the world for shaking putting.) Before hurrying out to continue his match, Micklem greeted me with his invariable hospitality, barking out his welcome in quick, peremptory phrases. Then, just as I noticed that he was wearing only a medium-weight sweater and no hat, he surveyed my goosedown trail jacket and the rest of my sub-Arctic outfit. “Think you’ll be warm enough?” he asked, and, with a little laugh, stroke out into the cold.

Whan Expands On USGA's Role In Distance Debate, Provides Timeline Update

New USGA CEO Mike Whan continued his busy interview schedule, this time, appearing on the Fried Egg podcast with Andy Johnson to talk distance.

This is not going to please those who feel restoring lost skill or design dynamics is needed:

“I think we’re going to establish some guidelines. I think those guidelines are probably going to slow some of the pace of progress over the next 10 or 20 years.

But are [equipment manufacturers] going to figure ways around that to continue to push the envelope? I’m actually counting on it because I think that’s what makes the game exciting. I also think that I have a responsibility to make sure that, when you look at [this issue] over the next 50 years, the decisions we made to control some of that pace didn’t obsolete every course in the country.”

As previous generations of the USGA leadership have felt but ultimately were unable to back-up with action.

Regarding timing:

”I think at this time next year, next summer, we’ll be talking about some real specific suggestions, recommendations, and be going through the same process [of taking feedback]. In the beginning, we put out the distance results. We then talked about some of the areas we want to look at. We’ve listened to feedback. I think, come this off-season, we’ll take all that feedback in and try to determine some specific directions. And then we’ll do the same thing. We’ll put it out there and let people [give] feedback.”

The suspense is not killing us.

He’s taken an interesting tact on where courses are built going forward, which I think would have been practical for his predecessors some time ago to acknowledge. Today? I’m not sure enough are going to be built for this to matter, but the sentiment is appreciated:

“More importantly, do you think there’ll ever be an urban golf course built again if it needs 8,600 yards to build the golf course? People say to me, “Well, you don’t need 86 [hundred] unless you’re building a golf course for the top elite.” But I’ve never met somebody who’s got a plan to build a golf course who doesn’t want to have a course that can host major championships. I just don’t think we want to make this game only a suburban game, only a game for the wealthy.”

Whan also spoke of finding a place in the equipment rules that have engineers working hard to circumvent the rules in the spirit of innovation and “energy”. Kind of like they’ve been doing for the last thirty years.

“But I think my job is to make sure that there’s as much energy about the future of this game three years from now as there is today, and 20 years from now as there is today. I want engineers to wake up every morning and say, ‘I see the rules that he put in place, but I’m going to spend a lot of hours today working on how to get excitement even within that space.’ I can’t throw a wet blanket over that or I’ll lose one of the things that makes this game truly exciting and great. If I see a package under the Christmas tree that looks like a golf club, I’m just like anybody else: I get pretty excited about ripping it open because maybe there’s two strokes of handicap in that box. And I don’t want to lose that excitement.”

Shop to drop (your handicap)!

Of course, that’s been the approach of the last few decades and average handicaps have not dropped substantially but costs have gone up. And until the pandemic, the number of people playing has steadily dropped under this approach. One born out of feeding the desires of public-traded companies, not necessarily the majority of golfers.

You can listen to the full pod here:

"Patrick Cantlay won $15 million using golf equipment that is up to seven years old"

Once the Ryder Cup is behind us all signs point to the distance discussion heating up and Golfweek’s David Dusek added some fun grist with this story on Patrick Cantlay’s bag.

It seems the FedExCup winner is playing old stuff which is the endorsement industry equivalent of stepping on the first tee with dirty toilet paper stuck to your shoe.

In most other worlds it would be a compliment that something made not that long ago was still so functional it delivered a $15 million payday for its user. Heck, most timeless brands take pride in the timelessness of the product.

But this it a planned obsolescence business driven by appeasing perceived Wall Street demands and the whole permanence thing is bad for business. Always something to remember as the whining begins this fall about stifled innovation , the end of growing the game, infringing on the rights of athletes, blah blah blah…

It’s quite a sob story until you realize someone played great golf with what most manufacturers consider antiquated equipment.

Yet if they were offered some bifurcation to free up the opportunity to innovate? They won’t like that either.

Barbara Nicklaus Cup To Feature Mixed College Team Event

While golf’s CEO types greenlight ad campaigns to show they care about the women’s game, some in the sport are actually delivering what folks might find “worth watching” on occasion: a mixed competition.

While the European Tour pushes individual formats of interest, college golf’s Barbara Nicklaus Cup provides another intriguing blueprint for something like the Olympics or perhaps an event not yet created.

From Dave Shedloski’s report on Ohio State coach Therese Hession’s effort to create the event and its format:

Each school will field six players from each men’s and women’s team to compete in four mixed foursomes and four singles matches in head-to-head contests against each of the other three schools. Each match counts for one point with a maximum of eight points per contest. The school with the most points after the three separate rounds will be the winner.

Members of the winning school will receive Muirfield Village Golf Club pin flags signed by both Jack and Barbara Nicklaus, said Hession, who hopes that a trophy might be created for the occasion in the next few years.

And two days at Muirfield Village should make for some fascinating match play.

State Of The Game 115: Ryder Cup Preview With Andrew Coltart

Andrew Coltart’s a six-time European Tour winner, former Ryder Cupper, current Sky Sports commentator and proud Scotsman. He joined Rod Morri, Mike Clayton and yours truly to discuss all things Ryder Cup and a little Solheim Cup as well. I think you’ll really enjoy this one, especially some of Coltart’s insights into this year’s team.

You can give Andrew a Twitter follow here. He will be in Wisconsin next week covering the event for Sky Sports.

Links to your favorite podcast app landing pages for SOTG are here, or you can listen via this embed:

Shock Finding: You're Only As Athletic As The Driver You're Playing

Golf.com’s Andrew Tursky “wanted to see how much driver technology has actually increased distance over the years” and conducted a test to find out.

He took five Taylormade drivers from different years over to True Spec Golf—company man!—and used a Foresight launch monitor to gather his data.

While you should hit the link to understand his approach and results, the biggest takeaway involved the leap from the 2004 R7’s Quad carry distance, which jumped 22.1 yards from 264.2 to 2021’s SIM2’s 286.3. The overall distance jump of 25.4 yards from 285.4 to 310.8 Tursky found would suggest:

(A) it’s not all the ball

(B) His athleticism really fluctuates as he changes clubs, not coincidentally

(C) The helping agronomy also was totally inconsistent between shots

Anyway, nice research on how different drivers react.

"The success of the series will hinge on access and authenticity."

The PGA Tour is certainly going down the right path in trying to develop a show with Netflix and in the vein of “Drive to Survive.” But it was hard to read Golf.com’s exclusive from Dylan Dethier and not laugh at the idea pro golfers will let us know much beyond how upset they were to get a dark grey courtesy card at Memphis three years.

Remember, these are people who won’t wear a microphone for fear we’d learn their state yardage secrets.

And unlike auto racing, it’s hard to do golf action or film the “teams” without distracting from the competition.

Dethier lays out the companies involved, including Rickie Fowler’s media company, and it’s already bizarre to see the references to players as the “cast”.

Still, the players under consideration are a high-powered bunch. The cast includes major champions, Ryder Cuppers and some half-dozen of the top 20 in the current World Ranking.

The success of the series will hinge on access and authenticity. Access will hinge on the final list of participants as well as their willingness to open up on the Tour’s weekly goings-on. Authenticity will depend on all parties allowing the sport’s most interesting subplots to play out on screen.

A few big questions remain: Which top players will sign on? How much off-course access will they grant film crews? Just how “real” will this reality television get?

I repeat, they won’t wear mic’s, do mid-round interviews or even let their caddies be mic’d up. Good luck producers!

Phil Still Upset About Possibly Losing 1.5 Inches Off His (Driver) Shaft, Now Wants The Golf Ball Targeted

Interesting twist in Phil Mickelson’s crusade against a proposed rule change yet to be proposed as far as I know: change the golf ball.

Last week he randomly took on the notion of a 46-inch shaft limit and this week, with his tennis court and palm trees as a backdrop, continued his battle for the everyday golfer against an unproposed proposal.

This week he starts off with some batty analogy about New York City crime rates and ice cream sales. Don’t close out the window so fast.

While I love that he’s advocating a ball that moves more (again) by “not having the ball be perimeter weighted,” he does admit more sidespin means more balls might be hit offline. “

“Just an idea to start addressing the real issue,” he said.

I’m fairly confident limiting the driver shaft at 46 inches—the standard shipping length for his Callaway Epic—will be much more palatable to the masses than a ball curving a bit more. But hey, at least he’s generating conversation and his old friends in Fairhaven will just love this.

The full video:

The USGA is trying to ban the sale of ice cream in NYC?
Hear me out - Restricting the driver length (again) is misreading the data (again). pic.twitter.com/mbfTOsSVx8

— Phil Mickelson (@PhilMickelson) September 2, 2021

Live Under Fear Of Expulsion: Monahan Rolls Out New Fan Code Of Conduct, Finally Addresses PIP In The Room

Having managed to evade any hard Q&A sessions since The Players—we don’t count Strategic Alliance pressers here—PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan answered questions on an array of pre-Tour Championship topics. He made news with a new fan code-of-conduct-policy, a mix of news related to the Asia swing, and finally answered questions about the Tour’s secret Player Impact Program, aka, the in-house trust fund for favorite sons.

Given that Monahan ushered in the PGA Tour’s relentless Live Under Par campaign early into his tenure—come out, get drunk, be a young demographic we’re desperate to court, express your inner douchey bro, make yourself part of the event by being loud, and share it all on social—I expected a trace of remorse. Not even a hint of responsibility accepted for deteriorating fan behavior.

But you don’t make $9 million a year taking blame or even acknowledging anything is actually wrong.

With that, let’s go to the transcript, starting with this from his prepared remarks:

Looking ahead, the PGA TOUR is in a position for unprecedented growth over the next 10 years, starting with the 2021-22 season. Next season official prize money will increase by approximately $35,000,000 and the FedExCup Comcast Business TOUR top-10 bonus pool combined will grow by $15,000,000 to $85,000,000. This total of $633,000,000 in comprehensive earnings marks an 18 percent increase year over year.

But we couldn’t wait to use the pandemic to lay off some low-paid people. Wonder what else those people who just had to go shared as a trait?

Anyway, buried the lede there on the Comcast thingy getting a purse bump. Really great news for fans. Imagine if we could just get Comcast to take some of that money and put tracer on the 18th tee of a playoff event? The game would really grow!

We're also excited to kick off our new domestic media rights agreements with CBS, NBC Golf Channel, and ESPN in 2022. These media companies share our vision for the future and these landmark partnerships that run through 2030 will be a major win for our fans as we expand and innovate our content and its delivery.

That’s pretty light on detail.

The golf industry is working together like never before and despite the challenges of the pandemic, the continued growth we have seen in recreational participation and in growing and diversifying our sport, our global game has never been stronger. Thank you, and thank you all for your coverage throughout the year. On behalf of the PGA TOUR, I and we appreciate all you do and the sacrifices you make to cover us throughout this year, especially across this Super Season.

Yes, all eight of you invited to the call.

Wait, is there a tension in the air? Is someone looking more uncomfortable than normal?

Before I open it up, Laura, to questions, I just, I wanted to take a minute to address a topic that's been top of mind lately for our players, fans, and of course, for those of you in the media. I'm talking about fan behavior and the interaction with our athletes, when that behavior crosses the line and what we should all be doing to address it when it does.

Bet on the next Baba Booey with a preferred PGA Tour gaming partner? Wrong!

It's been a long season, yes, but it's been a fantastic season. 50 events, THE PLAYERS Championship, six majors, the Olympics, these four consecutive playoffs, two to start the FedExCup playoffs and here we are at the TOUR Championship. It's been historic and compelling at every single turn.

Your honor, direct the witness to answer his own question and to please specify between Playoffs and sudden-death playoffs.

All of that on the heels of a lot of pent up demand with people stuck at home separated from their favorite sports and athletes like never before due to COVID and the various and necessary health and safety protocols in place to ensure we can get back to playing. It's been frustrating at times for all of us and then we get the opportunity to finally engage with our favorite sports or teams or players.

And we’ve taken living under par too far?

Well, I think we can all agree that we have seen issues as of late across the sports landscape where that pent up demand plays out in an ugly way. Golf is not immune from unfortunate and disruptive behavior, although I would say that we do have the very best fans in the world. This is about just a few bad actors. And for the record, this isn't about any one particular player or one particular incident,

Of course not, no one thought of such a thing…

but in some situations it's apparent that we have gotten away from the very civility and respect that are hallmarks to our great game.

Where could fans get the idea they were were as much the story and should come out to tournaments and share their lamest yells, taunts and even record it?

We began working on an updated fan code of conduct program in 2020, but put it aside last summer when we were playing without spectators and needed our focus to be on implementing the complicated yet necessary health and safety plan.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhttttttttttttt.

Once we began returning to normal capacity, we made it the highest of priorities to reinforce an environment at PGA TOUR events that allows for everyone to enjoy in a safe environment, and that is spectators players, volunteers, literally everybody.

New slogan: Talk Under Your Breath But Please Bet.

We have to be intentional about our expectations for fan behavior and I believe our fan code of conduct does that.

Intentional! Well, at least we know legal got their hands on these remarks.

By coming to a PGA TOUR event, you're expected to contribute to a welcoming and safe environment by refraining from and reporting any unsafe, disruptive, or harassing behavior. Comments or gestures that undermine the inclusive and welcoming nature of the game will not be tolerated, nor will any harassment of players, caddies, volunteers, officials, staff, or other spectators.

Media, too, right?

Fans who breach our code of conduct are subject to expulsion from the tournament and loss of their credential or ticket.

Live Under Fear of Expulsion!

Now, I would ask our fans, again, the very best fans in the world,

Yeah we got that the first time…

to take a moment and think about what it means to be a golf fan and to enjoy a PGA TOUR tournament. We're going to be leaders in this space. We're going to show everyone how easy it is to enjoy yourself at an event while also respecting the athletes in the field of play and the fans around you, many of whom are families with young kids who have a chance to be lifetime fans of the game themselves.

No you tried to take a new lead on that front and failed, miserably. Judging by the Live Under Par firesale and bon fires, you’re reassigning the folks who approved that, right?

Quite honestly, we should expect nothing less from each other, whether we're at a golf tournament or elsewhere in life.

The PGA Tour leading the way on civility after years of tolerating mashed potatoes and whitewashing the rare player run-ins with incivility? Rich!

Now to the questions…

Q. If I can just follow up on your last as it applies to the very real world situation with Bryson, would "Brooksie," would that qualify as [harassing] behavior?

JAY MONAHAN: I'm sorry, you broke up there.

Q. Sorry. Would "Brooksie" classify as harassing behavior when it's said to Bryson on a golf course?

JAY MONAHAN: Yes, and the reason I say yes is, you know, the barometer that we are all using is the word "respect," and to me, when you hear "Brooksie" yelled or you hear any expression yelled, the question is, is that respectful or disrespectful? That has been going on for an extended period of time. To me, at this point, it's disrespectful, and that's kind of behavior that we're not going to tolerate going forward.

Just think, some day historians will be looking at this transcript and saying, wait, “Brooksie” was grounds for ejection? Was that like some sort of dirty word? And why wasn’t it Brooksy?

Q. To follow up on that, have you talked with Bryson and Brooks and have you asked them to sort of ratchet down the, you know, kind of the back and forth that's going on here for the last few months?

JAY MONAHAN: I've had conversations with both players. These observations go back to pre-COVID as it relates to general concern around code of conduct at our tournaments and they certainly exist prior to that analysis that the team had led,

Teams were leading this long before the pandemic. Teams!

and so -- and I've been out over the last, at a lot of our tournaments this year, particularly since our return to play, and this issue isn't specific to one or two players.

And it sure seems like those pre-COVID chats you had with Brooks really resonated.

I think it's an opportunity to reassess overall civility at our tournament and fan behavior and reset the expectation through our fan code of conduct.

That's something that we have identified. It's something that I've talked to not only those two players, but a lot of our players about. It's something I've talked to our partners in the industry about, and we have all agreed that together we have got to come together and demonstrate what is truly exceptional about our game. And if you go back to the history of the game, the values of honor, integrity, respect that have been central fabric to the game since the point in time, our expectation is that that's what we're going to experience at our tournaments.

You see, problem is, lots of people recognized this but you wanted to chase a younger demographic and you surrounded yourself with too many marketing flacks who don’t really even like golf, thought it needed to become a party lifestyle brand, and it spiraled.

And I made the point earlier about families and kids, and we have volunteers that are giving so much of their time, and the game has never had more people coming into enjoy the game and experience it than we have had really over these last several months, and we want more people to come in. We just want to make certain that everybody can have a safe, healthy, and enjoyable experience, whether you're inside the ropes or outside the ropes and that's what we're intending to do.

Well that’s great, something most of us knew a few years ago and as it should be at a golf tournament. Let’s hope you catch the culprits behind that whole other dark chapter that led to this mess they put you in.

Let’s move on to Brooksie…Bryson.

Q. What are your concerns about having a player in Bryson, who very well could win this thing and who is one of the biggest stars on TOUR, not, not communicating with the media now, and what are his responsibilities in addressing some of the issues that you've addressed as far as fan conduct or anything else that comes up over the course of a tournament?

JAY MONAHAN: Yeah, listen, I think that as it relates to Bryson, listen, Bryson is a star. He has fascinated golf and sport fans around the world since our return to golf. He's also a young man that's growing and evolving, not just on the golf course, but off the golf course.

Yeah he’s building a new home, designing his 2022 Bentley, losing the weight he quickly gained, reading up on MRNA…

And I would just say to you that I look at this as a point in time. I don't think this is the way things are going to be for a long period of time. I'm hopeful that we'll get back to a steady cadence of communication that he'll have with the media.

Steady cadence of communication. Take that Finchem!

But he's working through some things and he's going to have my and our support as he continues to do so.

Well, can’t blame the media for violating his privacy.

Let’s take a break from the heavy stuff and read some good old fashioned gobbledygook.

And, listen, I think that as it relates to general fan behavior and any individual's role in it, I take it, I take that on as an organizational responsibility. We have had challenges in the past. We'll have challenges as we continue to go forward. And so long as we build the right systems, we effectively communicate with every one of our tournaments, we are planning and preplanning effectively, the marketplace knows the expectation when we're on-site, I think that we're going to, you know, we're going to get back to, we're going to get back to a great environment. We have a great environment. We'll continue to improve our environment at our tournaments going forward.

The shot clock expired at marketplace, sir. Back to the serious stuff.

Q. Have you ever considered, as they do in tennis, any type of a fine for players not fulfilling media obligations if they are indeed media obligations?

JAY MONAHAN: I would just say to you, in any instance, we're always going to focus on the player, the relationship with the player, understanding the player, trying to work with them to get to the right place and try and understand what's going through their heads.

You’re a golf tour, not a psychiatric hospital. But at least these independent contractors get hands-on support from their workplace.

And so a fine, I'm not sure what that is going to do for us in the long run.

Raise a little more for charity?

Ultimately we want the player presenting his best self when he's in front of the media, when he's in front of fans, and that's ultimately the goal for any player that's in a situation like that.

Lofty goals.

Q. It's my understanding that the player impact program will run through the end of the year, that it won't be a seasonal thing. I'm curious, without giving a specific example of a player, but I'm sure you've seen the list, can you give me an example of maybe content or an engagement that counts as added value when it comes to the metrics that you're using?

JAY MONAHAN: Well, we're using five different criteria, to all of which are equally weighted. And you look at Nielsen, your Saturday and Sunday time on television, to Google Search to Meltwater, to MVP Index, and to, bear with me here, it's at the back of my head, I'll come up with it. But each of these areas lead up to a player's ranking. And the bottom --

Q. Q Rating.

JAY MONAHAN: Sorry?

Q. I believe Q Rating was the one you were thinking of.

JAY MONAHAN: Q Rating, yes.

Who needs a Q rating when you have a Meltwater and MVP Index?

We really need to get clarification if that Saturday/Sunday time includes Playing Through and Eye On The Course time. Could swing the race!

The bottom line is when you look at any of those metrics, it's all about, for us, it's all about getting our players to engage in our game, help grow our TOUR, and help grow their own respective brands. And if you look at what drives engagement, it's on-course performance, and that's, that is part of the basis for the way the Player Impact Program was developed. You've seen how everybody's performed this year, and I think as we look at it and you think about the way that fans and the major story lines on the way fans have engaged, players have engaged fans through those channels, I think it's fairly intuitive.

Great, can’t wait for you to share the standings!

The point I would make is that we're up, you know, this year we're up 41 percent when you look at cross-channel consumption. We're up across every metric.

Let’s just all pause for a moment and remember our friend Tim Finchem who, in his prime, with his hair at its most dialed-in shade of North Florida auburn, never dropped a cross-channel consumption on us. Special moment here in PGA Tour history. Go on…

And I think that's, first and foremost, because of the quality of play, but I also think we're benefiting from some really powerful engagement from our players day-to-day and doing the things I just described.

Agreed, Brooks has been amazing this year.

Q. You kind of touched on some of this earlier, still having to endure the pandemic issues. Any consideration to bringing testing back for the players and support people or whatever on-site when the new season begins?

You get more cases if you test, haven’t you heard?

JAY MONAHAN: I think that the easiest way for me to answer that is that we're at, we need to respond to the realities of the pandemic and ultimately for us, that's a matter of working with our medical experts,

It went on and on. The answer was a no testing. Not even for bilateral pneumonia.

Let’s move on to the WGC HSBC, officially cancelled for 2021 according to Monahan, but the ZOZO will return to Japan after a one-year stop at Sherwood.

And about those World Golf Championships?

I think, to answer your question, you know, I see the WGCs continuing to play an important role in our schedule, but I also think you know that when you add our European Tour strategic alliance, when you have an organization that's continuously challenging itself to improve its product, improve its schedule, continue to provide the single greatest platform for top players in the world, everything becomes in play when you're going through how you might get there.

So, unfortunately -- with certainty, I can tell you that those two events are carrying forward, and long-term, I just think that we're going to continue to make them an important part of our consideration.

“For our consideration” is the new RIP.

Q. Could you confirm what Rex said, that the PIP is going to be through the end of the year? I'm not sure you really answered that part when he brought that up. And also, is the quote/unquote winner of this or the people that are in the money, so to speak, is that ever going to be made public?

JAY MONAHAN: It is through the end of the year, and we don't have any intention on publicizing it.

Such brevity!

Q. Why is that?

JAY MONAHAN: To us, it's a program that we created, was created by our players, with our players, for our players, and that's, that's what we decided that we were going to do when we created it.

For our players, by our players, to make our stars not leave us for another tour.

Q. On a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being not at all and 10 being the apocalypse is upon us, how concerned are you that there could be a renegade tour starting in the next year or so?

I would have gone Defcon but then I can never remember if it’s 1 to 5 or 5 to 1. Anyway, he went the “I’m just focused on the business of my tour” which is, of course, total nonsense…

JAY MONAHAN: I'm a hundred percent focused on our business and excited to be here at the TOUR Championship to complete this unbelievable season, to go into 2021-2022 with not only an incredibly strong schedule with great committed tournaments, but to be fully sponsored coming out of, coming through a pandemic, for us to have record consumption over the course of this year, taking that momentum into next year, for the value of the platform that these players are continuing to play on, for that to continue to grow, for the close work and relationship we have with our players and the way that we're going to continue to not only evolve our TOUR, but also evolve our game.

No, you stay out of the game. Other folks have it covered. We have strong proof you are not to be trusted. #liveunderpar

So that's what I, you know, that's what I have been focused on, that's what I'll continue to be focused on and I think in life you always have to be cognizant of, No. 1, there should be zero complacency to anything you do and No. 2, someone is always going to try and do, someone is always going to try and take, compete and take something away from you. And I've operated that way every day of my life and I think that's why, with the great team I have surrounded by me, we're going to continue to grow this great TOUR.

Q. Would that be a not at all?

JAY MONAHAN: I told you what I'm focused on. So it's, yeah, that's what I'm focused on.

Don’t get chippy! We’ve got a new code of conduct.

State Of The Game 114: Lawrence Donegan On McKellar, Matchplay And More

McKellar’s Lawrence Donegan joins us to cover a variety of topics from the state of junior golf to media to the ball going too far.

I’m having embed issues so just check out the show link or subscribe to the show on your favorite pod player.

And make sure you listen to this one long enough because Donegan provides a very nice 25% off all things McKellar with the code…just listen.

Phil Worried About Losing An Inch-And-A-Half Off His (Driver) Shaft

It’s unclear what set off Phil Mickelson but presumably he’s been informed of possible rule changes involving the length of drivers. And he’s not happy with what he’s hearing:

Word is USGA is soon rolling back driver length to 46inches.This is PATHETIC.1st it promotes a shorter more violent swing (injury prone,) doesn’t allow for length of arc to create speed,and during our 1st golf boom in 40 years,our amateur gov body keeps trying to make it less fun

— Phil Mickelson (@PhilMickelson) August 27, 2021

I’m not sure this is the vindication he was looking for, but Mickelson received this endorsement from Keegan Bradley:

They have no idea what they’re doing. Sad to watch. https://t.co/UOpQc6EG3V

— Keegan Bradley (@Keegan_Bradley) August 27, 2021

Sad to watch is correct.

Sad that at a time golf is thriving without any sign that an improvement in technology can be attributed to the growth, at a time players are posting absurd scores at the BMW, at a time Mickelson is struggling to make a Ryder Cup team in the year he won the PGA, and at a time his preferred manufacturer’s stock length is under than the possible length in question, thus dispelling the whole injury arguments, this was not his best-timed attack of the USGA.

But there is a positive! Check out the replies and how many people are pushing back at the idea of “hitting bombs” as the soul of the game. Oh there are still plenty of tools looking for his attention and clueless about the topic, but far fewer than we might have seen a few years ago.

The USGA has not commented.

If you need more context on Mickelson’s driver length concerns dating to last fall, Kyle Porter has a summary here.