Over the Green

Ping Golf turns 50 in 2009 and plans a year long celebration to kick off at the PGA Merchandise Show in January. Founder Karsten Solheim was a supporter of the PGA of America and according to John Solheim CEO, PGA Professionals were instrumental in the success of the company.

In addition to participating in the midweek equipment Demo Day Ping will sponsor for the second year a ‘Best Practicies Clubfitting’ area during the three days of the Show. Ping has not had floor space for exhibiting clubs and other equipment since 2002.

There are plenty of golf psychology books on the market and I’m sure each in its own way has a place for those golfers who want to score better through better self-management.

“How Great Golfers Think” by Bob Skura has a refreshing approach. Skura uses a narrative about four average players and though very different, in handicap and ability, sharing the desire to improve at game they love. Along with the four golfers in his tale he uses the device of a mentor to do the teaching or maybe more properly the “enlightening” and to communicate the psychology and principles of improvement.

Most interesting to me was the recognizing of emotions you are feeling in different circumstances, say in the club championship versus playing a casual round, plus how those emotions may potentially impact your shot selection, swing and overall performance.

Four principles (complimenting the four players in the story) are addressed starting with the requirement a player have a positive view of himself and his abilities, i.e. positive self-image. Then Skura moves to how you should train yourself to actually swing like your practice sessions on to course. Thirdly the technique most every good players uses of visualizing the shot and then allowing your body to execute the swing required without over analyzing and over thinking.

Lastly Skura addresses the famous (or infamous depending on your experience) zone. That fabled “see it – hit it – watch it” time when your physical, intellectual and emotional factors all come together. He relates the mental skills needed to find and keep your performance at the maximum level…in the zone.

“How Great Golfers Think” is available online for $21.95

For those wrapped up viewing the Ryder Cup the news from the LPGA is a South Korean, Sun-Ju Ahn won the regional qualifying at Mission Hills CC but both Stacy Lewis and Michelle Wie comfortably made the 32-women cut. Finals this year are the first week of December at LPGA International in Daytona Beach, Fla.

And speaking of Carolyn Bivens LPGA commissioner, read the interview by Beth Ann Baldry in the Sept. 20th Golfweek. Either I’m missing something or Bivens is demonstrating that magical confluence of ignorance and arrogance. I have no inside knowledge but it would seem that the LPGA is in real trouble if this the kind of leadership being provided. Where’s Charlie Mechem when you need him?

Completing this distaff column the great news is Nike has recognized the outstanding job Cindy Davis has done for three years as head of Nike’s effort in the U.S. and made her president of Nike Golf. This could be a big deal as Nike tries to penetrate the static equipment market worldwide as Davis obviously knows
how to do that based on the results in this country.

by Bill Bales, CEO aboutGolf

When my grandmother was succumbing to cancer, my uncle made a series of calls to my father to come pay a final visit. Over time the requests for my father’s visit became more urgent. I accompanied him on the ultimate visit. We were both shocked at the degree of my grandmother’s physical decline. Yet her mind and soul had sustained the same amazing luster and positive energy she had had in her prime.

The business of golf in America is ill. A casual observer might not notice, as would have been the case with my grandmother before her body began to fail. But the symptoms are present. Golf can be healed, but not without change. It’s been said that golf has lost its relevance in American culture. I am willing to stipulate that this is the effect. But the causes are many.

If you could give golf a stress test, a colonoscopy, and a full body MRI, you’d understand what the doctors already know.

Signs of Illness

The annual number of rounds played and the total number of golf course facilities in the U.S. has remained stagnant for more than a decade. Both have slipped in numbers over the last three years. Courses are being plowed under. In spite of the fact that millions of players take up the game each year, an equal or greater number give it up. The business of golf is doing a poor job at keeping its customers.

In many areas of the U.S. the traditional country club is falling from grace. In my market the signs are widespread. One private club was sold to creditors who changed it to a low-priced public access course, and are now contemplating subdividing it for housing. One club that has had a waiting list for 50 years is now struggling with a member shortage. One club, the site of more than half a dozen majors, recently admitted everyone on a waiting list of more than 80 would-be applicants after a mass exodus by existing members–under loss-leader terms reminiscent of the used car business. For a club that a generation ago wouldn’t even let you put your name on a waiting list unless you were a relative blue-blood, this was golf’s equivalent of the Mariel Boatlift.

It is getting increasingly difficult to find major sponsors for professional events. Companies that embraced golf just a few years ago have started to turn their back on golf. The auto industry, for years the backbone of golf sponsorship, has fallen on hard times and is making a rapid retreat. Cadillac, once a major Champions Tour sponsor, has withdrawn from golf completely. Chrysler and Buick, two of the PGA TOUR’s largest sponsors, have cut back significantly on golf spending.

The OEMs are running out of ways to advance club technology, and therefore ways to compel golfers to purchase new equipment. For many, their stock is at or near a long term low. And they struggle to earn meaningful profits. Barney Adams, in his book The WOW Factor, listed over 100 golf OEMs present in 1990 which are now either defunct or of greatly diminished significance.

While the youth of America don’t think golf is lame, as was the case a generation ago, they nonetheless are not embracing it. If golf can’t get the attention of today’s youth, there will be negative consequences a generation from now. Today’s youth require instant feedback and fast action. They get trophies for participation. They play video games with interactive action that moves faster than Retief Goosen in a thunderstorm. But the typical round of golf takes longer than ever. Golf broadcasts are slow and boring, with little or no interaction. Golf represents, in many ways, the antithesis of American youth culture.

The Howling Beasts

A while back I tried to write a clever article about slaying the BEASTS. “BEASTS” is my acronym for the things in golf that affect its overall relevance. We can heal golf if we focus on improving these fundamental elements.

B = Barriers: The game today places barriers for many participants. We must strive to welcome with open arms all players, regardless of ability, age, sex, race, or style. We must think of golf as the business it is and golfers as the customers they are. Instead of bombarding our customers with rules and negativity when they come to the course, we should strive to make every moment they spend an extremely positive
experience.

E = Equipment: Most golfers have equipment that is ill-fitting to their swing and physical capabilities. We must strive to deliver to golfers clubs that fit their games. We also need to make this equipment affordable, or to welcome new players without equipment by supplying it at the course–with a selection and reasonable cost comparable to how bowling centers accommodate casual participants.

A = Access: Many golfers perceive impediments to regular play. We must strive to overcome factors that mitigate access including price, availability, pace of play, weather, and location. One partial solution involves the growth of indoor golf. While hard to comprehend for golf traditionalists, indoor golf has the ability to overcome virtually all of the access problems golf faces. It also is consistent with a cultural trend to move outdoor sports and activities inside. Consider that over 80 new indoor water parks are expected to open in the U.S. in the next year. One indoor golf simulator purveyor claims that 2 million rounds per year are played on its simulators alone. GolfTec, an indoor golf instruction business, claims to give 10% of all the golf lessons in the U.S.

S = Social: The vast majority of golfers play to relax and have fun in a social environment. Women especially are oriented to the social aspects of play. We must strive to get compatible golfers together in a way that creates an enjoyable social experience. There are many ways for golf facilities to create a more social environment for players to meet and play together. But the biggest impact can be made, very easily, by simply getting club pros out from behind their desks and pro shop counters out onto the course to get folks together, play holes with the patrons, and act as the course social director.

T = Time: The most diabolical disease in golf today is slow play. We absolutely must take measures immediately to enforce a reasonable pace of play, and to educate golfers on how to speed up play and why it is essential to the health of golf. It dawned on me while playing the other day, waiting on every shot the entire round, that most players really have no idea how to get around the course efficiently. Instead of having marshals patrolling the course pretending to keep things moving, send out friendly instructors to help players learn good habits in efficient play.

S = Satisfaction: In golf, as it is with anything in life, if one doesn’t find their performance satisfying they’ll be less encouraged to do it more. We must strive to improve our methods and systems for teaching the game, we must help golfers realize and find pleasure in meeting realistic expectations, and we must provide courses and play from tees that fit our games. We must strive with all our power to guarantee that our customers have a very predictable, positive experience every time they come to the course.

If we place serious focus on these fundamental elements, we can not only heal the business of golf, but we can help the game of golf sustain its amazing luster and positive energy.

If the true test of a man’s intelligence is how much he agrees with you, Frank Thomas is a genius.

The former USGA technical director and industry consultant has no particular axe to grind other than his love of the game but he does have the ability, background and insight to point out failings and inconsistencies of his former employer, golf’s ‘ruling body.’ Recently his website (franklygolf.com) conducted a survey asking questions about the new specifications covering grooves on irons announced in August.

The results could not be a clearer clarion call to the USGA.

After the obvious response the USGA should consider effects of rules changes on all golfers (92% agreed or strongly agreed) the other results are more confirmation the USGA has lost touch with the average golfers and is off tilting at imagined problems applying overkill solutions. (What’s the possibility the Far Hills crowd provided advice to the LPGA for the just rescinded ‘English only’ policy? Naw…not possible.)

90% said the specifications of grooves should not be changed because of the performance of elite players.
85% want one set of rules not two or more sets segregated by level of skill.
Justification of the groove change based only considering elite players means it’s better to have two sets of rules – 48% agree, 36% do not agree and 16% unsure.
96% want the testing and comments from interested parties made public

The USGA has made the groove situation to be a problem or at very least blown a few people’s concern out of proportion. The fact is the golf industry is faced with some real problems, declining number of rounds and players to name just one, for which the ‘ruling body’ should be the leader in finding solutions.

Stop worrying whether a couple hundred of professional players who have dedicated their whole lives to golf can stop a nine iron on the green from long rough.

They just don’t get it. What they should get is some perspective.

Thank you Michelle.

That’s what LPGA Tour commissioner Caroly Bivens should be saying now that teenage star Michelle Wie will be teeing it up in the Tour qualifying school. The regional first stage is next week at Mission Hills CC in Calif.

Presuming the 18-year old Wie makes it through the finals and gets her card, she could be just the thing for the Tour to generate fan interest. That should translate into a lot more sponsor dollars and may go a long way in letting the Tour put behind it the most recent fiasco, the disestablished policy of ‘English competency’.

Further presuming Wie can be a winner on the ladies circuit foreign player dominance of the Tour could be lessened. That would be good news too.

Accepting the fact the LPGA Tour is the only true international tour in pro golf and reports of the Tour’s finances show Korean television money as being a major contributor Michelle Wie can revitalize American fan interest.

It may be unpolitic to say, but Americans want to see Americans win the same as Koreans want to see Koreans, Swedes Swedes, etc.

With Annika Sorestam’s retirement at the end of this season and the world’s number one Lorena Ochoa being from Mexico, Bivens has the possibility of an American star.

And there’s another light shining in the distance. Vicky Hurst of Florida blew away the competition on the Futures Tour this year and will have her LPGA Tour card as well.

So maybe it should be thank you Vicky and Michelle.

Bye to Annika
The best women’s player of all time closed out her career on the Ladies Euopean Tour with a third place finish at the Nykredit Masters in Denmark. Annika Sorenstam is expected to play several more times on the LPGA Tour before her announced retirement at the end of this season.

Champions Tour
The Champions Tour has changed the eligiblity rules for players not entitled to a tour card based on their record on the PGA Tour. Starting with this fall’s Q-school the top five finishers will get fully exempt status for the 2009 season and the next seven conditional status. The maximum number of local qualifying spots available each week is being cut to four from the present nine.

The LPGA folded like a cheap suit from pressure the past few days concerning the English proficiency testing policy for members of the Tour. In the two weeks since initiating the “learn English or else” dictum, that could have resulted in suspension of playing privileges which was aimed at non-English speaking players, the Tour has been besieged with criticism and threats by a long list of groups.

In a release this afternoon Commissioner Carolyn Bivens said, “We have decided to rescind those penalty provision. After hearing the concerns, we believe there are other ways to achieve our shared objective of supporting and enhancing the business opportunities for every tour player.”

The Tour says it will have create a new policy to aid non-English speaking players sans sanctions, loss of playing privileges but with added assistance to learn English later this year.

Understandable is the desire of the Tour to make players more fan, sponsor and media friendly in the light of recent domination by foreign golfers, especially Korean. However, this is not the first self-inflicted disaster on Bivens watch. We can only hope it is the last.

The decision by the LPGA Tour to require oral proficiency in English for players on their Tour has taken another twist. Calif. State Senator Leland Yee is seeking a legal opinion to determine if the policy is in violation of Calif. State law concerning discrimination in the workplace.

Additionally State Farm Insurance, one of the Tour’s longest running sponsors, has said they will pull their sponsorship unless the policy is changed.

Like I said, what a mess.

Bob Hope holds a special place in the hearts of the general public but for golf fans ‘Old Ski Nose’ was the living, breathing golf nut who did as much to promote and build the game he loved as anyone of his time.

Beginning Nov. 8 at the World Golf Hall of Fame in St. Augustine, Fla. a special exhibit will open with hundreds of memorabilia from his career both as an entertainer and a golfer. Hope was inducted in the Hall in 1983 and the “Shanks for the Memory” exhibit will be on display through 2009. He died in 2003 two months after celebrating his 100th birthday.

Some of the items on display include:
- the 1997 Congressional Resolution naming Hope an Honorary Veteran for his humanitarian services to the United States Armed Forces, which was the first such award granted in American history
- the Honorary Oscar Hope received at the 25th Annual Academy Awards in 1953 “For His Contribution To The Laughter Of The World
-the PGA money clip he received in 1942 by the PGA of America, which he carried through his life
- a driver that Hope used on stage as a prop during his USO Tours
and there will be a video presentation featuring some of Hope’s best-known golf stand-up and skits.

Hope admitted to playing over 2,000 courses around the world and as a measure of the esteem he is still held, his PGA Tour golf tournament in Palm Springs, Caif. is going strong with next year being its 50th anniversary.