LPGA's Whan Signs "Long Term Contract" Without Knowing Length, State Of TV Rights

The LPGA Tour’s turnaround and success under Mike Whan can’t be questioned given the dumpster fire he inherited his predecessor, Carolyn Bivens.

Still, I found his admission of a contract extension at the CME Globe finale fascinating on two levels: he claims to not know the length of his deal and this lands before the PGA Tour has announced a new television deal. You may recall Whan has farmed out the LPGA Tour’s next TV contract to PGA Tour negotiators as part of their effort to lock things up from 2022 and beyond.

From GolfChannel.com’s Randall Mell, who had the news first:

“It’s a long-term contract,” Whan said. “I don’t even know how long it is. I really don’t.”

LPGA president Vicki Goetze-Ackerman confirmed there’s a new deal in place.

“It’s a long-term contract,” Goetze-Ackerman said. “That’s all you’re going to get anyone to tell you. He has a vision for the future, and he wants to stay. He’s been fantastic, taking us from a dismal place in 2010 to where we are now, with a vision of an even stronger future.”

As for his legacy, Whan noted this:

“Whenever my tenure is over, nobody is going to remember who started the Founders Cup or International Crown. They are going to remember that there are a heck of a lot more women playing golf. In the next 20 years, you will see what’s happening in junior golf programs today happening in women’s golf. I think that’s what I’ll be most proud of when I’m sitting on a rocking chair someday.”

Next Week's Hong Kong Open Sounds Like It's In Jeopardy

The demonstrations in Hong Kong may prompt the cancellation of next week’s Hong Kong Open which is the—yes, really—co-season-opener for the European Tour’s 2019-20 schedule.

The week after their season-ending championship. Anyway…

Journalist Joy Chakravarty was one of a few to take to Twitter saying cancellation chatter is strong at this week’s season-ending Race to Dubai:

Hearing strong murmurs in Dubai that next week's @TheHKOpen has been called off because of the protests. Will have to confirm this with the @EuropeanTour tomorrow, but if true, I will miss watching the action at the beautiful Fanling course.

— Joy Chakravarty (@TheJoyofGolf) November 19, 2019

Golfweek's No. 1 Amateur Turns Pro: Andrea Lee Says Goodbye To Stanford Midseason

Joining other LPGA Q-Series grads and even non-grads relegated to the Symetra Tour, Andrea Lee took longer than her peers but made it official Tuesday: she’s leaving fifth-ranked Stanford mid-season to play professionally.

Even though she’s a senior with a potential NCAA Championship run and Augusta National Women’s Amateur in her future, Lee joins teammate Albane Valenzuela in saying goodbye to Stanford.

From Beth Ann Nichols’ Golfweek story:

“It was really hard for sure,” said Lee of the decision. “I had people telling me to stay, people telling me to go. Ultimately, I chose to turn professional, knowing that it was the best decision for me and my career. Just trusting my own gut.”

While it’s hard to fault Lee for pursuing her dreams, the situation in golf is even more stark than one-and-done in basketball because these players are leaving their programs mid-season.

As for the LPGA, there will probably be players who turn pro and give them Tour a boost, but who are the two best known LPGA rookies right now? Jennifer Kupcho and Maria Fassi, who both played the Augusta National Women’s Amateur and deferred their LPGA status until the college season’s conclusion. Kupcho has made it to the 2019 season-ending CME Group Tour Championship.

It's (Not Really) The Gym Time, Files: Kuchar Picks Up 10 Yards After Ball Switch

It’s all about the speed and gym work these guys put in these days. Oh, and some Trackman time, product development and bizarro regulatory complacency helps too.

From Golf.com’s Jessica Marksbury on Matt Kuchar putting a new ball into play at last week’s Mayakoba Classic and reaping noticeable benefits by switching to a Bridgestone Tour B X prototype.

During testing leading up to Mayakoba, Kuchar, who ranks 247th of 248 on Tour in driving distance (276.5 yards), found an additional 1.5 miles per hour ball speed with the ball, which equated to an additional 4 yards. With the rollout, Kuchar was consistently seeing an increase of 10.5 yards per drive.

Naturally what Kuchar done is undoubtedly within the rules, which begs the question: what’s the point of having rules if they can’t regulate the equipment to ensure an improvement in skill achieves the distance gain?

BBC's Masters Run Ends, Live Coverage Exclusive To Sky Sports Starting In 2020

The amazing run of BBC offering live major championship coverage since 1955 is now over, as the Masters and Sky Sports have signed a new deal starting in 2020.

Sky Sports has been part of UK Masters coverage since 2011. However, the move eliminates round three and four coverage that still aired on BBC, and requires a subscription to view.

From The Scotsman’s Graham Bean authored report:

The Beeb will still show highlights but for the first time since the 1950s there will be no live golf on the BBC.

The corporation lost the rights to show the Open live in 2017 after 61 years of free-to-air coverage and has now surrendered the Masters too.

From next year, Sky Sports will show exclusive live coverage of the tournament from Augusta. Sky also outbid the Beeb for the Open.

Up until 2011, the BBC screened live coverage from all four days of the Masters, but Sky Sports came in in 2011 and the Beeb was reduced to screening live coverage from Friday and Saturday only.

Love's Sea Island Plantation Course Redo Sports Some Travis, Raynor And Macdonald Charm

Sea Island’s Seaside Course remains the primary venue for the PGA Tour’s RSM Classic, but the first two rounds of play will be split with the newly remodeled Plantation Course.

PGATour.com’s Sean Martin looks at Davis Love, Mark Love and Scot Sherman’s effort to recapture traces of the course’s past, with nods to Walter Travis, original architect, and Seth Raynor/CB Macdonald.

From Martin’s extensive look at the redo:

Plantation’s historic feel had faded after nearly a century of play and a renovation in the late 1990s. This latest renovation draws upon the designs of architects like Travis, Seth Raynor and C.B. MacDonald.

Those men designed some of Love’s favorite courses, including Chicago Golf Club, Mountain Lake in Lake Wales, Florida, and two courses in Charleston, South Carolina: Yeamans Hall and Country Club of Charleston. It was a collaboration between Love, his brother Mark, and Scot Sherman, an architect with Love Golf Design who worked closely with Dye for many years.

They replicated those classic courses by creating sharp angles and straight lines, producing a look that was distinctive from the neighboring Seaside course and its big, bold bunkering.

The Sea Island YouTube page featured construction flyover updates, including this last one from August:

Golfer Expectations For Bunkers: Still Silly After All These Years

The minimalist architecture movement has helped deliver many sustainable elements to golf maintenance, but it still has not made a dent in golfer expectations for perfect bunker lies.

The Fried Egg’s Garrett Morrison considers the importance of groomed hazards for golfers and the cost to the game through the eyes of USGA agronomist George Waters.

To avoid player complaints about bunkers, courses have to increase spending. In turn, green fees go up. This is a vicious circle that sometimes leads to closure.

“What I think would surprise many golfers is that there are definitely courses that spend as much—or even more—per square foot on bunkers as they do on greens,” George Waters told me. Waters is Manager of Green Section Education for the USGA and wrote Sand and Golf: How Terrain Shapes the Game. “And it’s golfer expectations that drive that spending.”

Just as pressing as financial issues, according to Waters, are opportunity costs. The more time greenkeepers devote to bunker maintenance, the less they have for other tasks.

“The list is basically endless,” Waters said. “For lower- and mid-budget courses, the extra time can make a big difference in improving conditions on greens, approaches, and fairways. That could be more time spent hand watering, more time making irrigation repairs, more time nursing weak areas back to health.”

The story notes that current wokester-darling Sweetens Cove treats all bunkers as waste areas, meaning you can ground your club and maintenance is not as diligent about daily rakings.

The golf course industry generally misses opportunity to make a show of how these things affect cost. Because I’m pretty sure we’d have heard by now of a course knocking 10-20% off their green fees for a week while bunkers go unraked. I’m pretty sure golfers would not mind, but then again, I forget how much people demand perfect lies in hazards.

The 2020 Olympic Golf Projected Field...

…which would not include Tiger Woods by this assessment.

Maybe because Rio offered the first Olympic golf in over a hundred years, the run-up featured far more coverage than the upcoming Tokyo 2020 golf. Or maybe there just isn’t much interest in golf at the next Games because the unimaginative format remains. Anyway…

Courtesy of Twitter’s mysterious Nosferatu, here is the field as it stands currently, though many significant tournaments will be played between now and then.

The #OlympicGolf Top 60 projection for @Tokyo2020 as of 11-Nov-19 (based on #OWGR projection for 22-Jun-2020).

Two Austrians on the first page! 🇦🇹🇦🇹@BenHebertGolf replaces Langasque for 🇫🇷@shubhankargolf moves in to double India's presence 🇮🇳🇮🇳 pic.twitter.com/DtX4nvaFjt

— Nosferatu (@VC606) November 12, 2019

Video: CBS Sunday Morning On Renee Powell, Clearview And St. Andrews

CBS Sunday Morning viewers will enjoy this James Brown helmed feature produced by Alvin Patrick about the life and work of Renee Powell. The LPGA pioneer is continuing her father’s legacy, her work with female veterans using golf as a therapeutic pastime and her work in St. Andrews that includes membership in the R&A. (There are also some rare looks inside the R&A clubhouse, btw.)

Henley Nobly Admits To One-Ball Violation, Laments Excessiveness Of Penalty

This is a tough one, as you have to admire Russell Henley’s honesty and clarity in admitting he spotted a problem signing golf balls for his walking scorer and standard-bearer after a Mayakoba Classic second round 69. Henley detected that he may have violated the one-ball rule. And he was correct.

An 8-stroke penalty ensued after much consultation and while it is a harsh result given his need to make cuts and get much needed dollars/points in his accounts, Henley should take immense pride in turning himself in when he very easily could have ignored the matter.

Frankly, I don’t fully understand how 8-strokes was determined as his penalty, or how Henley thinks there should be a max of 4. Either way, Adam Schupak at Golfweek with the story and Henley’s view that the penalty didn’t fit the crime.

“Do I think eight shots is extreme in this situation? Absolutely,” said Henley, who said he was still processing the unusual circumstances. “I think there should be a max of four. I hope eventually we can have some conversations and change the rule. I came from such an innocent place, you could call it a careless place, and given there was no intent I think it’s a pretty harsh rule. It can be debated both ways and I’m aware of that. It’s unfortunate when you’re playing well and in contention, like I was, to you’re missing the cut. It’s tough to swallow.”

As we know, the Golf Gods work in mysterious ways and Henley will ultimately enjoy a reward for his honesty.

FedEx Won't Have Any Trouble Paying Their PGA Tour Bills After Tax Code Change Reduced 2018 Tax Bill To "Less Than Zero"

The New York Times’ Jim Tankersley, Peter Eavis and Ben Casselman explain how FedEx lobbied successfully for corporate tax cuts that effectively lowered their tax bill from a hefty $1.5. billion in 2017 to “less than zero” in 2018.

In other words, if you were wondering how they could justify that big FedExCup boost in prize money, not to worry!

As for capital investments, the company spent less in the 2018 fiscal year than it had projected in December 2017, before the tax law passed. It spent even less in 2019. Much of its savings have gone to reward shareholders: FedEx spent more than $2 billion on stock buybacks and dividend increases in the 2019 fiscal year, up from $1.6 billion in 2018, and more than double the amount the company spent on buybacks and dividends in fiscal year 2017.

A spokesman said it was unfair to judge the effect of the tax cuts on investment by looking at year-to-year changes in the company’s capital spending plans.

“FedEx invested billions in capital items eligible for accelerated depreciation and made large contributions to our employee pension plans,” the company said in a statement. “These factors have temporarily lowered our federal income tax, which was the law’s intention to help grow G.D.P., create jobs and increase wages.”

And that they did on the PGA Tour!

Amateur Golf Is Doomed, Files: Players Choosing Symetra Tour Life Over Competing For An NCAA Title

I’m loathe to pick on Sierra Brooks for turning pro hot off her Q-Series T-62 finish, guaranteeing Symetra Tour status. A perk she will take while conceding her final few months at Florida where she’s one of college golf’s best players on one of its best teams. But I will anyway.

After all, Brooks is one of many players—male or female—choosing to end her college career to turn pro even if the awaiting opportunities pale in comparison to the college golf structure.

Brooks talked to Golf.com’s Dylan Dethier about her decision despite not securing LPGA Tour status.

Golf is just the latest sport to, in seemingly sound ways, to address the desire of athletes and those around them to test the professional waters with rules that allow players to retain their amateur status while playing at Q-School.

And you know the drill: they do so, and even when faced with long odds or signs that more time in college would serve the athlete well, get convinced that cashing in is the way to go. Just like so many other sports, golf is piling up the cases of can’t-miss prospects who miss, diminishing the interest growth in college golf while not doing what’s best for young people who were often just given bad advice.

In the case of women’s golf, the LPGA’s noble effort to make sure they are open to new talent while also ensuring athletes are ready to perform, all while preserving the health of an important feeder tour in the form of college golf, appears to have failed.

Beth Ann Nichols considers the situation for Golfweek and concludes that allowing amateurs to test those professional waters at Q-School (Series), is not working.

It’s not a bad thing to make these players face a decision that has consequences. The thought process for going to Q-Series and taking that next step without a safety net looks completely different to the current landscape.

Amateurs haven’t always been allowed to participate in Q-School.

Why not go back to that?

It’s up to the LPGA to make some changes that will benefit all of women’s golf. Deferral was a good idea in theory, but there won’t be many Kupchos and Fassis who follow.

College golf isn’t the tour’s responsibility, but it is the main feeder system for the LPGA and Symetra Tour, and the lifeblood of American women’s golf.

Once again, there’s got to be a better way.

It Must Be Nedbank Challenge Week: Mongooses Attack Tommy Fleetwood's Ball

The Gary Player Country Club annually plays host to the Nedbank Challenge with dynamic wildlife on course and in the nearby Pilanesberg National Park.

During round one of the 2019 event, Tommy Fleetwood’s golf ball was attacked. Attacked! This time mongooses converged.

Anyone know the rule for a mongoose attack on your golf ball?😂 Got to love Sun City! #NGC2019 pic.twitter.com/Jh1czA7uSl

— Tommy Fleetwood (@TommyFleetwood1) November 14, 2019

El Tucan Is Back: Lands Rob Oppenheim's Bag At Mayakoba

El Tucan, short-changed a year ago, has landed Rob Oppenheim’s bag for the rain-delayed Mayacoma PGA Tour event. Round one play will commence Friday.

Granted, this would not normally be news except given the international headlines made by Matt Kuchar not paying his fill-in bag man what he deserved after winning the Mayakoba.

Brian Wacker with how the caddie for Kuchar last year finally landed work this week.

“I needed a caddie,” Oppenheim told Golf Digest. “He lives there, was available and aside from everything that has gone on I was looking for the best opportunity to play well. He knows the course and has had success here.”

Boca Blues: City Asks for New Architects Of Proposed Project Over Cost

The day many always thought would come arrived in Boca Raton. Maybe there have been previous examples, but it’s hard not to read about Boca’s kibosh on architects Tom Fazio II and Nick Price over the $13 million budgeted for their creation of 18 holes and a par 3 course.

Despite winning the project bid over many other architects, the city said the price was simply too high and will be asking for new bids. All over price, reports Christina Hristoforidis.

On the Tuesday night joint meeting between the City Council and the Boca Beach and Parks District, the idea for an RFP was approved.

In regards to the current project’s architects, Price/Fazio can submit in the new RFP and have the option to be compared to the resented from the RFP for the best golf course design.

According to WPTV, this decision left the President of Golf Association Greg Galanis, feeling betrayed.

For years the sport has been told the economics of building a new course was spiraling too far out of control. So it should come as little surprise that a city finally said not to the price of a golf course.

A story from February, 2019 broke down why the cost of the project was so high and while USGA greens weren’t mentioned, the overall cost to build a course has become unsustainable when coupled with infrastructure costs.

Building the golf course alone will cost about $15 million, said Wayne Branthwaite, spearheading the project for Price/Fazio Design.

“But there are several other costs from items that have to be done: Landscaping, irrigation pumps ...” Branthwaite said. The district also has to build the clubhouse (about $3.4 million), a maintenance facility (about $2.6 million) and a tunnel to cross Northwest Second Avenue, which cuts through the golf course (about $2.4 million), according to a Price/Fazio report.