Johnny, No SubAir References At The Players, Please

This story from Garry Smits is probably only of interest to the maintenance world...but they have a new air sucker and hot blast blower system at the TPC Sawgrass. Actually, it's been in place a while but only now is fully converted to Precision Air.

TPC Sawgrass superintendent Tom Vlach said the maximum temperature of the warm air is 140 degrees, and he can blow cool air on the greens as low as 50 degrees. Precision Air has already been installed under 12 greens at the Stadium Course and will be put under the final six (Nos. 6, 7, 8, 11, 12 and 13) within the next few weeks.

The delay for those holes was because electrical wiring for power had to be strung out to their remote locations on the golf course. The Precision Air system is using the same infrastructure as the Sub Air and is about 1 feet beneath the putting surface.

None of the greens had to be dug up to install the components.

“In all honesty, people thought the FedExCup was confusing. Wait until they see this."

Steve Elling sets up the impending disaster that is the PGA Tour's plan to change Q-School and create a FedExCup-lite playoff between players from the PGA and Nationwide Tours.

But for a sport long hailed as one of the most democratic in all sports, Q-school, which dates to 1965 and used to be contested twice annually as the main boulevard to the tour ranks, is about to be sold down the river in an attempt to prop up the value of the satellite Nationwide, a tour property that needs a new title sponsor after the insurance company's contract expires later this year.

The latest details of the plan were pitched to players last night in San Diego and as expected, at least one player made clear it's not going over well. Stephanie Wei quotes a player who attended the mandatory meeting.

“Not to be stagnant and not forward thinking, but things are going really, really well right now, and you just got done saying this is the best season we’ve ever had, but we need to fix it, we need to change it like there’s something wrong? I just don’t understand it.

“Right now when I tee it up on the PGA Tour, I know what I have to do on the PGA Tour to keep my card. Well, there are all these different situations that can be presented (in the new proposed format) — are you going to work hard at the FedExCup or are you going to work hard at the Money List?

There are two or three transitional periods where things are going to overlap, and I just left (the meeting) shaking my head, and I’m sure a lot of other people did, too, to the point of why are we going to do this, instead of, ‘Hey, if I finish outside the top 125, I’ve got to go to Qschool and I get an opportunity to get my card back.’”

Tiger's Abu Dhabi Presser

I sat through this so you don't have to...

:45 First sightlines mention.

8:10: Donegan asks, "Does payment of appearance fees ever influence your scheduling?" Follows up with something about cutting his price ?

11:50 in is the first Hank-book question.

14:00 He's asked about a cricket test match...

18:40 First "traj's" reference.

20:30 Second Hank-book question, first really short and snippy answer.

21:25 First really cranky answer to a Hank-book question.

Jerry West On Tiger And The West Virginia Version Of Tweeting

The Northern Trust Open kicked off its mid-February staging with a retro media day where the defending champion actually appeared in person and Andy Walker, Pepperdine golfer from the school's 1997 NCAA title winning team, was announced as the winner of the Charlie Sifford Exemption Northern Trust Exemption.

Kudos to Aaron Baddeley for showing up on his way to Torrey Pines, something tour event winners so rarely do these days as part of their tournament winning defense. He was joined on stage by Executive Director Jerry West, who, in year three of his stint, had plenty of interesting things to say.

Asked about Southern California native Tiger Woods not playing the event, he mentioned knowing Tiger for a long time and talking about, among other things, the media...

To me the press is not always going to be complimentary to you, okay, but I think it's important that they're not, to be honest with you.  That makes that balance.

I think if somebody writes something negative about you, that doesn't mean that they don't like you.  It's part of their job description.  But I always felt the press is a balance, and he's going to focus ‑‑ with his stature as a player and everything that goes on in his life, I'm not so sure that any of us know ‑‑ I know a little bit, how many demands you have on your life by people that sometimes you'd like to say, look, I've got three things I've got to do this day, and if you don't, you might be a real horse's behind, okay.

He's really ‑‑ any professional golfer is like their own enterprise.  You're running your own business, you're doing things to try and incorporate what your family might want and when you need time away.  I'm sure that's exactly what he does.

But to say it's not disappointing, oh, it's always disappointing that he wouldn't show up at any event, particularly here in Los Angeles, because we did give him the first time ‑‑ but I completely understand, I completely do.  It would be wonderful to have him because of his Southern California roots and the enormous success he's had in golf right now.

West remains fascinated with Tiger's decision to rebuild his swing more than once.

He's trying to kind of reinvent himself as a golfer.  I've always known him ‑‑ talking about this one teacher you had and what you were doing, I've always said to myself, why in the heck would a guy that can putt and chip like this and hit the ball really well want to change what he's doing, and the answer obviously is to get better.  There's something there that intrigues you.  I think he's had now three swing coaches, and I used to think how in the hell can you improve on perfection.

And I think the greatest swing I've ever seen in golf, and you never saw him in person, Aaron, you're much too young, was Sam Snead.  It was the most natural‑looking swing.  He never had a teacher.  But he was an incredible ball striker, and just to watch him hit the golf ball, I could just go out and ‑‑ I'd rather not watch golfers play to be honest with you except trying to win a tournament.  Just to watch him hit golf balls was the most amazing thing I ever seen in my life.  It was amazing to watch him hit golf balls.  There wasn't that information around, there wasn't all the cameras, all the teaching aids, but I've often felt that a player himself knows as he goes along in time, and he's had a number of injuries, was it time for him to change.  But I think it's just his curiosity, and he's brilliantly smart, just wanting to get better and be better as a golfer.

That tells me something, what kind of a competitor he really is.  But for us to have him out here would be wonderful.  But whether that happens or not, I'm not aware of that.  But I would hope he would come here and play someday.  He hasn't won here.  I'm not sure where he hasn't won, but this would be a great place for him to start, I know that.  We'd love to have him, but we wish him the best as he tries to get out there and reestablish his game the way it was in the past.

As for recent attempts to woo Woods back to Riviera...

JERRY WEST:  Well, I obviously have.  I try never to do anything publicly that would be misconstrued the wrong way.  To me there's ways of doing things privately, and particularly people of his stature and his name and everything, that everywhere his life has been here in the last year and a half, injuries, personal things, obviously not playing as well as he would like.  I try never to do that because it's not my place.  My place is just to tell him he's welcome.  I talked to his agent, Mark Steinberg, at length, and we discussed a number of things, but I think he's very aware that we want him to play, there's no question about that.

And he was asked about Jason Gore's successful Twitter campaign to get in the event.

JERRY WEST:  Me?  Oh, my God.  I think I'll pass on that.  No, it really is interesting, the enormous amount of excitement, all this media stuff has made out of particularly athletes today and actors and stuff like that, people prominently in the news.  I would never do that.  I would never have a bodyguard, I wouldn't have anything like that.  I would want to try to be normal, be who I am, not change the face of who I am, someone that people would approach and say hello without any barriers being there and/or predetermine what kind of person I was.  I'd let them find that out for themselves.

But I think it's remarkable the effect it's had on a lot of people worldwide and their ability to communicate with me, particularly someone that people might think is a little bit different, a little bit more special.  But Aaron, I'll leave that to you.  In West Virginia we communicate by smoke signals (laughter), but as I say, I don't think I would be very good at that.

As for Badds' awareness of the successful campaign, I smell a Twitter spat in the making!

Q.  Aaron, were you familiar with the Twitter campaign that Jason had?

AARON BADDELEY:  I wasn't.  I don't follow Jason on Twitter.  I didn't get any re‑Tweets, so I didn't see it.

It should be noted he laughed as he revealed he was not following Pepperdine's greatest golfer...