Over the Green

Nancy Lopez

More than 150 pieces of memorabilia from her career will be on display including LPGA Championship trophies, her trophy she won as part of the victorious U.S. Team in the inaugural Solheim Cup and even the legendary Ray Cook putter she used to win so many of her 48 LPGA titles. The exhibit will feature Lopez’s accomplishments on the course but will also show the honest, engaging and entertaining persona that so deeply connected her to golf fans worldwide.

“I am thrilled and honored to have my own exhibit at the World Golf Hall of Fame,” Lopez said. “My fans are a huge reason I not only realized all of my dreams as a professional golfer, but also the reason I enjoyed every step of the way. I am so happy to share all of these trophies and mementos with my fans and hope they enjoy the exhibit, and my heartfelt gratitude for their years of support.”

Lopez will join Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Bobby Jones, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Bob Hope as members of the World Golf Hall of Fame & Museum to be featured in special exhibitions. She will make an appearance at the Hall of Fame in January, 2011 to officially open her exhibit.

“We are excited to be able to highlight a superstar like Nancy Lopez,” said Jack Peter, Sr. Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the World Golf Hall of Fame & Museum. “She is such an important figure in women’s golf and we felt that her career was a perfect candidate for a special exhibit. Her smile lit up golf courses throughout the world and we couldn’t be happier to have it light up the museum.”

The exhibition highlights her unprecedented 1978 season, when she won nine events – including an LPGA record five in a row – and collected the LPGA Rookie of the Year, Player of the Year and Vare Trophy (scoring average). She remains the only player to have won those three awards in the same season.

“Nancy Lopez: Pride, Passion & Personality” will also illustrate Lopez’s legendary interaction with her fans and the impact she has had through her many charitable works.

Woods anniversary
A year and a few days after the infamous car wreck at the end of his home’s driveway in Orlando’s Isleworth CC development just about everything that possibly could be said or written about Tiger Woods has been written or said. The situation now has to be improved by his returning to form on the course not a public relations campaign.

LPGA folds to Lawless attack
During the season ending tournament week for the LPGA Championship starting Monday, the LPGA will hold a player meeting to vote on removing the “female at birth” clause from the membership requirements of the organization. In response to a suit by Linda Lawless in federal court charging discrimination, the former police officer who was surgically changed to a female five years ago, says there was discrimination by the LPGA in rejecting an application for membership.

Big Bertha turns 20
It may be hard to remember golf before the Big Bertha but the first of the ‘large headed’ drivers was introduced in 1991 and a revolution in golf club technology was begun. At the time Callaway Golf made a logical extension of the thinking behind those battered metal number one clubs then found at driving ranges and said why not make a well designed quality club that will help the average golfer hit the ball further?

The 190cc (or about 40 percent of today’s typical head size) Big Bertha quickly became the best selling driver and after five centuries of traditional clubs it marked the end to the wooden club most recently crafted from persimmon or maple. The performance difference was startling to pros and amateurs alike and soon other club makers jumped on the idea. As an aside, recent Euro team Ryder Cup captain Colin Montgomery fueled the claims of astounding jumps in distance over persimmon with the hyperbolic assessment he hit the ball 30 yards further. Of course he was a paid Callaway spokesman at the time and his much publicized statement helped rocket Big Bertha sales.

The Big Bertha and its offspring however did make Callaway the dominant driver brand for more than ten years only relinquishing the spot when TaylorMade Golf brought out with the “r series” of titanium alloy drivers which became the most used driver on Tour.

Finally, with 19th-hole wagers in mind, the name Big Bertha comes from a giant howitzer cannon used by the Germans in World War I that fired a 16.5-inch 1,800 pound shell almost eight miles.

Wie ends a frustrating year
Many were looking to 2010 to be Michelle Wie’s breakout year – a major win or two and an assault on the top spot in the world ranking.

It didn’t happen for a number of reasons with injuries restricting her play and practice. The most recent was her WD (bad back) from the Lorena Ochoa Invitational two weeks ago where she was defending champion. Her one 2010 win was the CN Canadian Open by four shots but she displayed a less than scintillating performance on the weekend.

Listening to her it did seem the Stanford University senior had found some balance between her personal and professional lives with an attitude that signaled her readiness to challenge the best players every week. That was not to be and Wie will not play in the LPGA Tour Championship in Orlando since the event was moved to the first week in December making a conflict with college finals.

This is a problem for Wie, not just that she won’t play but that the LPGA is putting on a massive publicity campaign in Orlando that even includes players making personal appearances everywhere from Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom to Orlando Magic basketball games. Wie has not been there.

The following week is the Omega Dubai Ladies Masters and since Omega is one of her biggest sponsors it’s a cinch she will play. Is it any wonder some may resent Wie?

At last…the end of the 2010 season. Well not really the end, but close enough. The golf world is ready to get on with the new year – new season.

On the PGA Tour the number one ranked golfer was a no-show for the first three months, retained his top ranking while playing mediocre at best with no wins and just two top tens. The world’s number two was diagnosed with a debilitating disease, won the Masters and a few youngsters entered the winners circle.

The LPGA Tour despite losing one-third of their scheduled tournaments over the last two years, having the top player quit-the second in two years-and faced with increasing disinterest from American fans did get a big sponsorship from Wegman’s Supermarkets for the LPGA Championship and finally gets an event in Florida – the Tour Championship this Dec. at Grand Cypress Resort in Orlando.

PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem characterized 2010 as “interesting” and “eventful” while LPGA Tour commissioner Michael Whan, as reported on GolfWeek.com, “came in 2010 with significant fear.”

It certainly was an interesting year and no doubt there’s still fear in some quarters.

Private golf clubs are feeling the pinch from the economic hard times faced by members and prospective members with the concensus seemingly being private clubs will survive but that segment will never be the same again. This could also be said for the high-end resort courses however it’s better than evenmoney as business people feel fewer financial constraints (business will eventually improve!), entertaining and travel the biggest drivers of resort golf will return.

Across the board a lot of courses have gone out of business and others while still operating are in bankruptcy. It goes without saying every non-private course is looking hard to cut costs and grab a bigger share of what rounds are being played. The numbers from the National Golf Foundation, which track this kind of thing, are a lagging indicator but show a continued shrinkage of the number of courses.

According to the NGF at the end of 2009 there were 15,979 golf facilities broken down as 11,637 public and 4,342 private. During the year 139.5 courses closed (they calculate everything in 18-hole equivalents) and 49.5 opened for a net decrease of 90 courses. That’s the fourth year in a row the number of courses has gone down. It’s difficult to tell where the bottom is but it is clear there is still an over supply of golf facilities so more golf courses will close and there will be another net loss of golf courses in 2010. One industry veteran figures even after the declines of the last four years there are still 20% to 25% too many golf courses.

A bright spot though is with the long awaited upturn in housing construction perhaps on the horizon, residentail development golf course construction could get a boost. At one time developers felt all they had to do was build a course, stake some lots and the rest was easy and profitable. This part of the industry though will take a few more years to be truly healthly, just like the overall housing business. When residental developments with golf courses as an amenity are started again they are going to need a new business model to sell houses and it probably won’t be at the inflated inflated “golf course frontage” prices of the past 20 years.

Finally and continuing the trend of the of the last several years, the number of rounds played are down. It is significant the loss of players and therefore rounds played has continued and seems to be accelerating. The loss of players – over 5% in 2009 – is bad news not only for golf courses but also for club manufacturers, golf tourism and any of the allied businesses.

So on balance, a lot of golf people will be glad to see the end of 2010 even accepting the old saying, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Golf needs a big change. Increase the number of players and everything will take care of itself.

TV rules
There nothing good about a disqualification and LPGA veteran and Hall of Famer Julie Inkster certainly wasn’t happy after being seen using a training weight on her club while waiting to hit after a very long delay during her second round at the Safeway Classic. Her use of the weight was inadvertent but no official called her on it until a TV viewer sent an email asking if that wasn’t against the rules.

It’s ironic that for the second week in a row television played a major role in a tournament outcome after Dustin Johnson was confirmed to have grounded his club in a bunker on the final hole at the PGA Championship through the use of television replay.

Attendance up
The PGA of America says the number of golf apparel and equipment buyers (many of them club professionals) attending the 2010 PGA Fall Expo two days last week in Las Vegas was up 16% from last year. Attendees were from 46 states and 19 foreign countries.

The Fall show in recent years has become more orientated towards apparel with this years exhibitors including Cutter& Buck, Greg Norman Collection, AHEAD, Fila, Peter Millar, LIJA, Pukka, Sport Haley-Ben Hogan, PUMA, Cleveland Classics, Imperial, Fairway & Greene and PIMA Direct though most of the major golf equipment companies also had exhibitions. Notably absent were apparel giant adidas and their equipment company TaylorMade Golf.

No attendance figures are available but the Fall Show is a pale comparison to the annual PGA Merchandise Show held in January each year in Orlando, Fla. when attendance is in the range of 40,000 with over half the cavernous Orange County Convention Center devoted to golf equipment booths.

Changing show dates to mid-August from Sept. and a move to the Venetian Resort have been cited as causes for more buyers showing up many in the industry believe business may be on an upswing so the expense of the trip to Las Vegas can be justified.

Maruman Majesty
Maruman Golf has announced a new line the Majesty Vanquish VR clubs which includes drivers, fairways, hybrids and irons. Featuring Maurman’s Fullerene Titanium using nanotechnology the driver has an MSRP of $1,399, the fairways $1,099, hybrids $749 and an 8-iron set (five iron through sand wedge) is $4,299.

Has anyone noticed? The past couple of weeks in the world of golf have been very unusual if not down right weird.

An Oklahoma amateur shoots a score of 56 in a local member-guest tournament, an Alabama teen records a 57 in his state’s Boys Junior Championship plus of course Stuart Appleby humbles the field with a 59 at the Greenbrier Classic for a classic come-from-behind win. Kind of makes David Frost’s 61 yesterday up in Minnesota to take his first Champions Tour event almost irrelevant…except presumably to Frost.

In the race for number one ranking in the world Tiger Woods played the four days at Firestone like his was trying to give away his top spot to Phil Mickelson and Mickelson played like he didn’t want to take it. If it’s of any significance or what may be a preview of the coming PGA Championship, Tiger won the two man battle of the fourth round Sunday with a 77 to Lefty’s 78. One could compare these two efforts to winner Hunter Mahan’s 64, but that would be labeled cruel and unusual punishment.

And by the way, Woods personal problems have not fallen out of the media but then again gawkers drive slowly past a car wreck too.

Not to be out done in the unusual department, the LPGA’s triple A league Future’s Tour saw a rules official disqualify Sarah Brown during her round from the International at Concord for carrying a nonconforming Ping wedge, which the world now knows was conforming to the Rules of Golf. Tour management tried to compensate Brown with the laughable sum of $2,000 which Brown refused. However Brown and the Tour did eventually reach an undisclosed settlement. No one is blaming Ping or Brown and everyone is beating up on the Future’s Tour and the two officials who acted with world class stupidity. The USGA so far has escaped public outrage as the cause of this fiasco due to the “groove rule” they instituted last year.

And then as if to provide icing on the cake, Acushnet is suing TaylorMade Golf for trumpeting TMaG’s signing of Camilo Villegas. The young superstar is presently under contract with Acushnet’s Footjoy and Titleist brands and used in advertising for those products. TMaG inked a deal with Villegas starting in the 2011 season and put out a press release telling the world.

This is not normally done as it does lessen the endorsement value of any golfer to the company he is currently accepting a paycheck from and who knows when the shoe may be on the other foot.

Acushnet is asking for an injunction to stop TMaG from any further mention of Villegas until the end of the year and will ask for money to compensate for the loss of his endorsement for five months. Of course Villegas probably isn’t too happy either since he’s included in the law suit.

It’s hard to imagine what PGA Championship week will bring.

Paula Creamer was absolutely masterful in her conquest of Oakmont in the U.S. Women’s Open. Someone who has not played this brute can fully appreciate how difficult it is, not to mention under USGA championship conditions.

Creamer’s four shot win is huge for her, her family and American women’s golf.

As we have been writing for the past several years, American golf fans relegated the LPGA Tour to a second class status. It not been just because Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and the other boys have hogged the attention, though they have, but because American fans have shown little interest in the outcome of events when native born players aren’t winning.

Call it whatever you want but the decline of the LPGA Tour in the eyes of U.S. fans has been a dramatic force in terms of the business of the tour – sponsorship, endorsements, television, etc. Additions to the schedule have been overseas, Mexico and other locations making the LPGA a truly global tour so when the fact is added Americans have had so few wins, fans in this country in general give the ladies ciruit a big yawn.

Too bad. Now after four wins out of 14 events this year (beside Creamer, Meaghan Francella-1, Cristie Kerr-2) and with Kerr number one in the world rankings maybe fan interest will rekindle.

The LPGA has gone through rough times, not helped by the Carolyn Bivens tenure as commissioner nor by the economic downturn but winning breds winning. With Americans winning, fans should be returning and that’s a winning combination.

There’s new queen of the hill and as unbelievable as it may seem, it’s an American. Cristie Kerr with a win of epic margin securing her second career major leaps from fifth to first in the Rolex Women’s World Rankings.

“Epic” might not due justice to the way she blew away a field of the best lady players in golf. Twelve strokes over Song-Hee Kim (Korea) and by 14 over Ai Miyazato (Japan) who had held the number one spot in world rankings for one week taking over from Jiyai Shin after her win at the ShopRite LPGA Classic.

More importantly Kerr is the first American ever to be in the number one spot since the rankings were launched in February 2006. Annika Sorenstam and then Lorena Ochoa, now both retired, had dominated the list for four years until Shin took over.

Does this signal resurgence by American women in world golf? Let’s hope so for the sake of the LPGA, their marketing efforts and their ability to attract tournament sponsors.

A few facts though put some dimensions on the situation.

Kerr’s major win is the sixth win for an American this year-her second.
American’s have won only four of the past 14 majors-Kerr has two of those.
Kerr’s win the LPGA Championship is the first by an American in 10 years.
Michelle Wie is the only other American in the top 10 of the Rolex Rankings.
Kerr is second on the 2010 money list-$60,000 behind Miyazato.
Azahara Munoz (Spain) leads U.S.’s Amanda Blumenherst for rookie honors.
Mina Harigae is the only other American (#10) in the rookie top 10.

As has appeared in this column on other occasions, the LPGA Tour is truly the only international golf tour, way ahead of the PGA Tour or any other of the male tours. While this is wonderful and good for the game it is not the business plan which will either cause intense fan involvement in the United States nor corporate sponsorships from U.S. companies.

The answer is simple. The LPGA needs to keep doing what it’s doing around the world, particularly Asia where money/sponsorships have grown but to make the Tour work in the U.S. American players have to win and win often. In short, Cristy or Michelle or Paula or whomever needs to dominant.

And by the way, Mrs. Ray Knight made one of her rare appearances on Tour at the LPGA Championship Presented by Wegmans thrilling the Rochester crowd. Unfortunately Hall of Fame member Nancy Lopez in her first tournament of 2010 missed the cut with rounds of 87 and 86.

Let’s see, the world’s number one female golfer is hanging up her spikes for what seem like pretty straight forward reasons-desire (i.e., lack of) and family.

Lorena Ochoa can be congratulated for making a life decision though at 28 years of age she was no doubt gong to be in the Hall of Fame except now she won’t have had the request ten years on the LPGA Tour to qualify. She leaves with the memory of the previous world number one Annika Sorenstam’s retirement still fresh.

So what does this all mean for the LPGA Tour? MORE…

By Carolyn McCool

Everyday is a winding road, as Sheryl Crow would sing. Everyday is a day of new headlines. Today would be no different for the golf world. Headlines read that Lorena Ochoa is retiring.

Surprised? Maybe. Shocked? Not in the least. Last year when I saw and interacted with Lorena at the Women’s US Open at my home course in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, I knew a lot was on her gracious soul and mind. Her petite frame made her small but her smile, golf power, and personal communication style made her very large. As I spoke to her and wished her well on her upcoming tournament, I could see her fire was burning somewhere else.

It was known and being spoken about in every place that Lorena had other things on her mind, like love. She was planning a wedding. She was in another world that asked different things of her. She was contemplating her future while she was doing what she was given to the world to do, play golf and spread goodwill to whatever she touched.
She was known to cook breakfast and mingle with Mexican grounds’ workers at tournament sites.

She spoke to anyone who spoke to her and she made you feel like what you said mattered to her. She appreciated and loved her home country and wore its flag and heritage with pride. She was a foreign player here in the US but nothing was really foreign about Lorena. She was as “native” to any place she traveled to or played golf at because she loved what she was doing and appreciated why she could do it.

She did not win the US Women’s Open last year nor was she much in the “talk” of the actual tournament happenings at Saucon Valley. It didn’t seem to matter to her, she had “fires” burning somewhere else in a place where her passions could fan.

After marrying in December and now announcing her retirement, the golf world has been tipped on its side a little. How can she walk away when she has made the points qualifications for the LPGA Hall of Fame induction requirement after eight years on tour, but not the ten year requirement some have asked? It is a question her fans and commentators will ask but she will answer.

For now, she has. Something has given Lorena more to live for, more to give for and golf’s gracious and great Mexican player has signed up for a passion and life she wants. She knows she is getting more and golf will always be something that gave that to her.

Carolyn McCool is a freelance writer and lives in Bethlehem, PA, with her husband and twin sons. Lorena Ochoa has always been one of her favorite players.

Loiter a while near the first tee of any course in America and you quite probably will come to the conclusion a lot of American golfers have no sense of style, are apathetic about what they wear or both. Men and, truth be told even some ladies, tee it up in unstylish, unflattering even ugly attire.

However these unstylish and unflattering problems can be fixed and joining the “look great – play great” movement is only a matter of paying attention to what’s current. To make that conversion from mundane to modern easier a company popular in Europe has introduced to America their line of stylish and what some might say cutting edge apparel. MORE…