Golfing News & Blog Articles

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2022 Masters App Is Live And Ready To Be Updated

As each year goes by I fear the true sporting spirit of match play is less and less in evidence. We find a growing disposition for play to concentrate on the figures that are registered at a hole rather than on the question of whether the hole is lost or won in a purely friendly match. TOM SIMPSON

/ Geoff Shackelford

It’s back only sporting minor updates in the form of a new interactive Featured Group feed. Also, the Masters Radio is listed and may have been last year, too (if anyone recalls let me know). This would mean it’s not exclusive to SiriusXM and that you can get that broadcast via phone while driving or sitting on the beach.

Here is the link to update or download the 2022 edition.


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Quadriltateral: Major(s) News And Notes, March 24, 2022

As each year goes by I fear the true sporting spirit of match play is less and less in evidence. We find a growing disposition for play to concentrate on the figures that are registered at a hole rather than on the question of whether the hole is lost or won in a purely friendly match. TOM SIMPSON

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DeChambeau Says Hand Injury Happened Playing Table Tennis In Saudi Arabia

Match play, you see, is much more of a joust. It calls for a doughty, resourceful competitor, the sort of fellow who is not ruffled by his opponent’s fireworks and is able to set off a few of his own when it counts. HERBERT WARREN WIND

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2022 Valspar Ratings Stink; The Players Lowest In At Least 20 Years

Match play, you see, is much more of a joust. It calls for a doughty, resourceful competitor, the sort of fellow who is not ruffled by his opponent’s fireworks and is able to set off a few of his own when it counts. HERBERT WARREN WIND

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Monahan: "The system is working"

Match play, you see, is much more of a joust. It calls for a doughty, resourceful competitor, the sort of fellow who is not ruffled by his opponent’s fireworks and is able to set off a few of his own when it counts. HERBERT WARREN WIND

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The Fried Egg Podcast: Is An Equipment Rollback On The Horizon?

A golf course exists primarily for match play, which is a sport, as distinguished from stroke play, which more resembles rifle shooting than sport in that it lacks the joy of personal contact with the opponent. FREDDIE TAIT

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Oakland Hills Adds 2034, 2051 U.S. Open's And Four More Amateur Championships

The USGA staved off, well, no one by securing Oakland Hills for future majors and top amateur events. The latest announcement adds to previously announced U.S. Women’s Opens for the fabled South Course.

For Immediate Release for championships not immediately happening:

LIBERTY CORNER, N.J. (March 22, 2022) – Historic Oakland Hills Country Club, in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., has been selected as the host site for the 2034 and 2051 U.S. Open Championships as well as four additional prestigious USGA amateur championships, starting in 2024. 

“We could not be happier to bring six additional championships to such an iconic venue as Oakland Hills,” said John Bodenhamer, USGA chief championships officer. “Since its first U.S. Open in 1924, Oakland Hills has provided a supreme test for the game’s very best, and it will continue to do so for professionals and amateurs alike in the coming years.”  

Adding to the two U.S. Opens and the two U.S. Women’s Opens in 2031 and 2042 announced in January, Oakland Hills’ South Course will host the 2024 U.S. Junior Amateur, 2029 U.S. Women’s Amateur, 2038 U.S. Girls’ Junior and 2047 U.S. Amateur. The club is set to host a total of eight USGA championships between 2024 and 2051. It will become the fifth club to have hosted a U.S. Open, U.S. Women’s Open, U.S. Amateur and U.S. Women’s Amateur, with Pebble Beach set to join those ranks when it hosts the U.S. Women’s Open in 2023. 

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State Of The Game 120: Latest Distance Report Analyzed

A golf course exists primarily for match play, which is a sport, as distinguished from stroke play, which more resembles rifle shooting than sport in that it lacks the joy of personal contact with the opponent. FREDDIE TAIT

/ Geoff Shackelford

Rod Morri, Mike Clayton and yours truly discussed the long-awaited follow-up from the USGA and R&A.

We discussed some of my reporting and comments from the R&A’s Steve Otto, featured here.

As always, State of The Game is available wherever podcasts are streamed. Or you can check it out here at the show’s page. Or just listen via the embed:


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Mickelson Out Of The 2022 Masters; Winners And Losers

A golf course exists primarily for match play, which is a sport, as distinguished from stroke play, which more resembles rifle shooting than sport in that it lacks the joy of personal contact with the opponent. FREDDIE TAIT

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Walker Cup Gets Moved To Even Numbers Years Starting In 2026

The move of the biennial team matches to even number years implies the schedule impact of golf in the Olympics and a chance to help the World Amateur Team Championships apparently motivated the decision.

The announcement sets up matches in 2025 at Cypress Point and in 2026 at a UK venue to be determined, with previous announced U.S. venues Bandon Dunes and Oakmont moving up a year.

For Immediate Release from the R&A:

THE R&A AND THE USGA MOVE THE WALKER CUP MATCH TO EVEN YEARS BEGINNING IN 2026

21 March 2022, St Andrews, Scotland: The R&A and the USGA today announced that the Walker Cup match will be contested in even years from 2026 onwards.

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Distances That Were Supposed To Level Off Are Growing At A Steady Rate

The first requisite of all tactics in match play is to show your opponent no sign of weakness. You may be two down and scared stiff that you are going to top the next one into a cross-bunker, but for Heaven’s sake don’t let him see it. JOHN STOBBS

/ Geoff Shackelford

From the R&A/USGA 2021 Distance Report

No kidding, right? But there are also numbers showing the PGA Tour’s longest have leveled off again. So Mike Stachura considered the USGA/R&A distance report and boiled a key number that might justify not only a hard stand but the dreaded “r” word.

Then again, there is a fundamental difference between looking at the rate of growth in distance compared to the actual growth. In the last five years, distance on the PGA Tour is increasing at a rate of about a yard per year. That’s less than half what it was in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but more than double the rate from 1980-95. And when those increases are coming on top of a driving distance average that is in the mid-290s now compared to the low 260s then, that’s what has the ruling bodies concerned. It’s not the size of the distance gains, it’s that, at least to the ruling bodies, they don’t appear to be leveling off, despite all the equipment regulations. That’s especially concerning to them at a time almost two decades removed from their Joint Statement of Principles that declared “any further significant increases in hitting distances at the highest level are undesirable.”


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Asian Tour Loses Its London Stop Before It Was Ever Played

The first requisite of all tactics in match play is to show your opponent no sign of weakness. You may be two down and scared stiff that you are going to top the next one into a cross-bunker, but for Heaven’s sake don’t let him see it. JOHN STOBBS

/ Geoff Shackelford

Reader R pointed out that the Asian Tour schedule no longer features the previously June stop near London because that event is now on the LIV Invitational circuit’s 2022 schedule.

The Asian Tour announcement for the new “international series” was on February 1 and the London stop was the centerpiece for growing the tour along with an additional $100 million from the Saudi sugar fund.

"We are on the threshold of a new era for Asian golf," said Cho Minn Thant, Asian Tour commissioner and CEO.

"The International Series is a new upper-tier of elite events, the likes of which the region has not seen before, that will mark the start of a phenomenal period of growth for the Asian Tour.

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Norman On Five Clubs Pod: Grow The Game, Grow The Game, Grow The Game

Appearing on Gary Williams’ Five Clubs podcast, LIV Golf Commish Greg Norman was pressed by the host on the financing behind his 8-event schedule. Sitting in front of the Sydney opera house and minus his ears, Norman did make one bit of news while producing pathetic answers on funding front.

This was an odd line to me for a series of eight, come-as-you go events for independent contractors.

“There are contracts, but I’m not going to give out any names on that,” Norman said when pressed on commitments to the league. He later said that invitations would be going out “very shortly.”

I get it that you need contract for your likeness and stuff, but here’s guessing the fine print deals with more than that. As in, a lack of independence.

As for the Saudi stuff, get your “grow the game” nonsense ready. But do chuckle when the Shark notes how the Saudis deep history of support for the game dates to 2019.

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Old Soul: Revisiting The Ties Between Augusta National And St Andrews

I attribute the insane arrogance of the later Roman emperors almost entirely to the fact that, never having played golf, they never knew that strange chastening humility which is engendered by a topped chip-shot. If Cleopatra had been outed in the First Round of the Ladies’ Singles, we should have heard a lot less of her proud imperiousness. P.G. WODEHOUSE

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Meanwhile...In Other Sovereign Wealth Fund News DP World Running Up Pension Find Deficit

I attribute the insane arrogance of the later Roman emperors almost entirely to the fact that, never having played golf, they never knew that strange chastening humility which is engendered by a topped chip-shot. If Cleopatra had been outed in the First Round of the Ladies’ Singles, we should have heard a lot less of her proud imperiousness. P.G. WODEHOUSE

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Schwartzel Holes Out A Holes After Glorious Above-Shoulder Club Hurl

I attribute the insane arrogance of the later Roman emperors almost entirely to the fact that, never having played golf, they never knew that strange chastening humility which is engendered by a topped chip-shot. If Cleopatra had been outed in the First Round of the Ladies’ Singles, we should have heard a lot less of her proud imperiousness. P.G. WODEHOUSE

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What A Change In Golf Ball Testing Might Do For Top Players

In order to preserve the balance between power and the length of holes and in order to retain the special features of the game, the power of the ball should be limited.
R&A RULES OF GOLF COMMITTEE, 1919

/ Geoff Shackelford

GolfDigest.com’s Mike Stachura assesses the R&A/USGA joing announcement of specific “areas of interest” for future possible changes in testing. The item covers a lot, but a change from 120 to 125 m.p.h. change might mean exceeding the “Overall Distance Standard” and render many current golf balls non-conforming.

John Spitzer, the USGA’s managing director of equipment standards, said the 125-mile-per-hour number isn’t based on any biomechanical theory of human limitations with the golf swing. It’s based on the eye test.

“We don’t know if it’s enough, but we do have a little bit of a crystal ball in the long drive competition. So the question of whether [this kind of speed] is physically possible is answered based on what we’ve seen from those folks.”

As for the number of current balls that such a rule change might make nonconforming, Spitzer said it wouldn’t be all. “There’s a substantial number of balls that wouldn’t run afoul or would require only very minor tweaks,” he said. But when asked specifically whether it would be almost all of the balls played on tour, which based on current sales from Golf Datatech account for 35-40 percent of the market, he said, “Yes. It would be a much higher percentage but not all because there are certain players that fall in love with a ball that might be three generations back.”

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Quadrilateral: Major(s) News & Notes, March 17th, 2022

In order to preserve the balance between power and the length of holes and in order to retain the special features of the game, the power of the ball should be limited.
R&A RULES OF GOLF COMMITTEE, 1919

/ Geoff Shackelford

A crazy week of news and starts with a short commentary on why players need to embrace proposed equipment rule changes first, worry about the silly Saudi money later. I know, I know.

Plus, Korda, Masters on Seatgeek, Corrections, Reads, Listens and Tweets.

And just a reminder that as the Masters nears there wiill be plenty more Quads as the major season heats up. So sign up. You can write it off, too. Or at least read up on the whole newsletter thing here.

Also a housekeeping note: iPhone users can now read Substack newsletters in their new free app. I’ve been enjoying it for a few days now and the reading experience is way, way better. The notifications come eerily fast. While email will always be an option, the Substack app should cut down on posts getting lost in spam filters and makes the comment experience better. As with the email edition, you can scroll text without somehow opening up an ad or trying to close out a pop-up video.


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How To Help University Of The Southwest Golf Team Victims

My feeling is that the USGA and the R&A someday are going to have to separate the amateur player and the professional. They do that in other sports like baseball, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire, they play in these great stadiums but if they had aluminum bats every stadium would be obsolete.
PETE DYE

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LIV Releases Schedule, $250 Million In Purse Money And A Return Visit To The Magical Royal Greens

Greg Norman and friends rolled out a schedule for eight events beginning in June offering big money and venues that scream “not quite good enough” for big time tournaments. The league does not yet have a television partner though in the era of streaming they have more options than a few years ago. The bigger issue will be attracting players after the last few weeks of bad news and inability of the Kingdom to stay out of the news.

From Bob Harig’s SI.com story where Greg Norman says the PGA Tour forced a change in plans and also the chances of a lawsuit:

“We had to react,’’ Norman said. “No question the PGA Tour’s reaction to where we were positioned at that time was very strong. They put down a tree in their road to put another obstacle in our way. But no matter what obstacle they put forth we work our way around it. And that’s why we are here today. It’s up to the players.

“We are going to give them opportunities to play where they want to play and choose. We are not going away. We are here for the long haul.’’

The LIV Golf Invitational (oh what a name!) 2022 schedule would allow a player to use their three waivers per season if allowed to play these without a full commitment (thanks to the wraparound schedule putting the first three events against the 2021-22 schedule and the last four against the 2022-23 schedule):

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GolfLynk.com