On the day that the LPGA named marketing executive Michael Whan as its new commissioner, I happened to be chatting up a very plugged-in source down at the Jersey Shore.

 

Any stirrings about bringing back the late, great ShopRite LPGA Classic, a fan favorite 21 years until it died in 2006, I wondered?

 

As a matter of fact, he said, "It’s within the realm of possibility."

 

According to my source, nothing is close to being signed, sealed or delivered, but there are ongoing conversations about possibly bringing back the ShopRite.  He said that Seaview Marriott, the ShopRite’s final venue, is apparently willing and able; and ShopRite, which is now a secondary presenting sponsor of the Sybase Classic outside New York City, has been approached and is listening.

 

If the ShopRite is revived, it would be without Larry and Ruth Harrison, who ran it for years.  They have moved on, as have their old tournament staffers.  This is new blood that is trying to rejuvenate the ShopRite Classic.

 

All of this should come as good news to Whan, the incoming commissioner.  After the dreadful four-year reign of Carolyn Bivens—she killed the old ShopRite, by the way – Whan is being handed a tournament schedule for 2010 that has fewer than 20 events under contract. 

 

The situation is so bad for the LPGA that one recent story in a prominent golf magazine reported that an alarming number of players are exploring opportunities on other tours, such as in Japan. 

 

Again, bringing back the ShopRite is only preliminary discussions, but at least there are discussions.  Details as they develop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The biggest non-story of the day, maybe the week, was splashed across the bottom half of the New York Times on Sunday, in a box no less.

 

Under a two-column headline that read: "Man’s World at White House?  No Harm, No Foul, Aides Say," accompanied by a photo of President Obama taking a jumper in a pick-up basketball game, the Times proceeded to foist upon the reading public the following complaint:

 

Our athletic, sports-crazy president has failed to include a woman in either his "high-level" regular hoops games or any of the 23 rounds of golf he has played since taking office nine months ago.

 

There is nothing I hate more than reading a story that makes me set aside a newspaper and say to myself, "So this is why people hate the media..."  But I did just that yesterday reading that piece.

 

Of all the things that President Obama and we citizens have to worry about – you don’t need me to review the list here – the failure to include women in White House basketball games or his occasional foursome is not one of them.

 

Ironically, this criticism of Obama comes not from the far right, which hammers him on plenty of other matters, but rather from what the Times said were "women’s advocates and liberal bloggers."

 

Aside from stewing in my own juices that some people actually worry about this kind of stuff, and that the Times saw fit give to give it credence by giving it prominent front page play, I resent seeing golf dragged into this quagmire of petty political correctness/incorrectness.

 

Golf didn’t do anything wrong.  Once again, our beloved game has been made to look bad by association, like when snooty country clubs snub potential members because they are of a certain race, creed, gender or religion.  Or when we see that repugnant photo of addicted golfer Rush Limbaugh sucking on that enormous phallic cigar.  Or when some yahoo marches confidently to the first tee dressed in bright yellow knickers, a black and yellow striped cashmere sweater and a black Ben Hogan cap, completely unaware that he looks like a bumble bee, not a golfer, and that he is an embarrassment to the game.

 

Please, leave golf out of this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every now and then some knucklehead on the PGA Tour says or does something that reminds you of just how out of touch with the real world many of those guys are.

 

If you’ve seen the Golf Plus section of this week’s Sports Illustrated, you know what I am talking about.  To wit: An anonymously-penned column with the headline: "Bellyache: A new PGA Tour policy is giving rank-and-file players like me indigestion."

 

In logic so ill-considered and whiny it’ll snap your head back, an unidentified PGA Tour player moans and groans about a new Tour policy intended to appease sponsors at a time when too many of them are heading for the exits.

 

Each week at tournaments, guys who are so marginally known or successful that fat cat businessmen are not exactly falling all over themselves to fork over $5,000 or $10,000 for the pleasure of their company (or brooding silence) in a pro-am, are going to be on the hook to show up for 90 minutes at a sponsor party on Tuesday or Wednesday.

 

Are you kidding me?  A party? With icky regular people, even if they do underwrite my lifestyle?  What’s next, high-mileage courtesy cars?

 

"We know we have a bad economy and have to do something to help the companies that write our checks,"  Mr. Anonymous writes incredulously.  "And it’s not that we don’t appreciate the sponsors.  But to tell guys that 52 of you may play and another 30 are on the hook to visits sponsors – that’s a nightmare."

 

That’s a nightmare?

 

He’s not done.  "I can tell you that every player would rather endure a five- or six-hour pro-am round than put on a happy face and hang out at a two-hour dinner."

 

Wait, there’s more.  "It may not sound like much, but you’re there to entertain, and have to be "on" the entire time," he writes.  "And you can’t no-show or leave early or hide in the bathroom, since I’m sure Commissioner Finchem’s disciples will be taking attendance."

 

Oh, the horrors of having to show up at a party, where I can assure you the food is free and fabulous, the bar is open, the fat cats are fawning and the women are flirtatious.

 

And let’s be clear about who we are talking about.  As Mr. Whiny makes clear, it’s not Tiger and Phil and other big name players who have to show up to eat free shrimp and make small talk.  No, those guys are further up the PGA Tour food chain and they are required to play in the pro-am.  The guys who have to come to the parties are they guys who don’t rate the pro-am, the guys who rank between 50^th and 110^th on the money list.

 

A quick check of the money list shows that 50^th is Paul Goydos, who so far this year has pocketed just over $1.6 million in winnings; 110^th is Michael Bradley, who has made $689,147.

 

Paul Goydos is a very nice guy and way too smart to be the dope who wrote this column in SI. But let’s be honest, if he wasn’t playing on the PGA Tour, Goydos would probably return to teaching school.  I’d tell you what I think Michael Bradley would be doing if it he wasn’t on the PGA Tour, if I wasn’t so vague on who he is. Is he the skinny, red-headed guy?

 

Either way, if Goydos or Bradley, or anybody in between them on the money list, thinks he can make more money doing something else, without having to make "happy face" or eat free shrimp for 90 minutes a week, they ought to get on with it.    Go. Now.  Don’t waste another moment  in the shackles of the PGA Tour.  Come on, you don’t have to put up with these kind of outrageous demands.

 

Or maybe they could just take a look at what’s going on in the real world around them and wise up.

 

 

In all my time covering golf tournaments, one guy I never could figure out was Vijay Singh.

 

Actually, I never much cared for him.  I admired his talent, work ethic and longevity, but I didn’t admire the guy.

 

Even at the height of Singh’s career, when he won back-to-back money titles in 2003-’04 and had every reason to be all smiles, he wasn’t.  Or at least he wasn’t around the media.

 

Singh’s relationship with the scribbler’s was so prickly that whenever his name would rise to the top of a leaderboard, you could almost hear a collective sigh bordering on a groan go up in the media center.  Why? Because it meant we’d have to deal with him.

 

Dealing with Vijay was not fun.  He’d arrive in the media center, looking sullen and disinterested, like he’d been dragged there kicking and screaming by a media official.  He’d settle into his chair with all the anticipation of a man about to undergo a root canal.

 

Then the questions would start?  Usually, they weren’t hard, awkward, probing questions -- just basic stuff.  How do you feel going into the final round tomorrow holding the lead?  What’s it going to take to close the deal?  Worried about Tiger lurking two shots back?

 

More often than not, Vijay would respond in a tone so indifferent it just oozed contempt for the question and the questioner.  Sometimes, he’d glare at the questioner.  If the question came from a prominent writer he particularly didn’t like, Vijay would just pretend he didn’t hear it.

 

I never could understand why he maintained such an arm’s-length relationship with the media.  Other players didn’t, not even Tiger.

 

Funny thing is, if Vijay had made even a half-hearted attempt at pretending to get along with the media, he could have skated by on a smile and a song.  As it was, because he seemed to be so deliberately disagreeable, few in the media liked him and few were inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

 

From time to time, you’d hear from another player that the media had Vijay all wrong.   He was a good guy, generous and popular with the other players, they’d say.  Which, in my mind, only further begged the question of why he didn’t show that side of himself to the media?  It would have taken so little effort to soothe the relationship and win them over.

 

Over time I concluded that Vijay either didn’t care about his relationship with the media or, if he did, he wasn’t about to show it.  So he just kept on doing what he did.

 

Given all this, I have to give Vijay credit when credit is due.  On Sunday at the Presidents Cup, he did a very sportsmanlike thing.  In his singles match against Lucas Glover, on the 18^th hole, he conceded a 7-foot birdie putt that halved the match for the American. At that point, the halve didn’t matter.  Tiger had already won the match that clinched the victory for the U.S. six holes back.

 

What the concession did do was enable Glover, the U.S. Open champion who was having a frustrating week, to salvage a shred of dignity by earning ½ point.  If Glover had missed the putt, he would have gone 0-4 and been the only American to get skunked for the week.

 

True to form, afterward, Vijay claimed he didn’t realize the concession was for the halve, and that Glover would have made the putt anyway.

 

"It was great. It was a good gesture," Glover said. "I'm not sure he knew what the score was, because he came up afterward and said, 'I didn't know that was for a halve. I thought I was 1 up.'"

 

That’s called Vijay being Vijay.

I don’t know about you but I pretty much lost interest in all the FedEx Cup playoff tweaking sometime during the Bush Administration.

 

Until yesterday.

 

Watching the Tour Championship Sunday afternoon, as Tiger, Phil, Sean, Stricker, Paddy and Kenny Perry battled down the homestretch, what was not to like about the prospect of one of those guys finding himself standing over a $10 million putt on the 72^nd hole?

 

Talk about a putt with a pucker factor....

 

Too bad it didn’t come to that.  Still, it was fun to listen to the boys in the booth scrambling to keep track of the various changing scenarios and outcomes as Tiger and cast jockeyed for position.  Compare that to last year, when Vijay Singh showed up at East Lake needing only to maintain a pulse for four days to win the FedEx Cup. I’ll take Sunday’s melodrama any day.

 

Although Tiger didn’t win a major this year, and he didn’t win the Tour Championship, it’s hard to argue that he didn’t deserve to lay claim to another FedEx Cup.  It is, after all, mule-headed to argue that he didn’t have the best year or that he isn’t the best player in the game – certainly of his era, maybe of all time.

 

If there is any disappointment, it is that somebody didn’t break out of the pack the steal the FedEx Cup out from under Tiger’s nose.  Sean O’Hair, the homeboy, would have been a good candidate, and he made a good run Sunday as he continues to distinguish himself as one of today’s handful of elite players.  And it would have been a storybook ending for the father of three young kids to take home the $10 mil.  But it didn’t happen.

 

My guess is, after the thrill ride at East Lake on Sunday, and after having the two best players in the game standing side-by-side at the awards ceremony, the PGA Tour is done tweaking the format for a while.

 

 

 

 

 

If you’re a golfer in the Philadelphia area, one of the best possible things that can happen to you is to get to play a course designed by William S. Flynn.

 

Anybody who belongs to a club with a Flynn-designed course or who has played a Flynn needs no introduction to the great architect.  Although he was born in Massachusetts in 1890, Flynn spent most of his adult life in Philadelphia and it was here that he truly left his mark.  Unless, of course, you want to talk about Flynn’s masterpiece, Shinnecock Hills on Long Island, host of  four U.S. Opens, most recently in 2004.

 

Closer to home, Flynn, who died in 1945 at the age of 54, left his imprint on the golfing landscape in the forms of some of the area’s finest courses:  Philadelphia Country Club is a Flynn, as are Huntingdon Valley Country Club, Manufacturers Golf & Country Club, Green Valley Country Club, Concord Country Club, Woodcrest Country Club, Lehigh Country Club, Lancaster Country Club, Atlantic City Country Club, Lancaster Country Club, Harrisburg Country Club, Philmont Country Club and Rolling Green Golf Club.  And although Hugh Wilson is generally credited with designing Merion’s East Course, Flynn also had a major hand in the course as we know it today.

 

So respected is Flynn that that there are two separate tournaments are held each year in his honor, the Flynn Cup and the Flynn Invitational.

 

Unfortunately for public golfers, Flynn courses tend to be private.  Still, with the quantity and quality of his work, it is safe to say that Flynn has provided more golfers with enjoyable, challenging rounds than any other two architects combined. It is also safe to say that the clubs with Flynns are indeed proud of their courses and show them off at every opportunity.

 

This week, that club was Rolling Green Golf Club in Springfield, Delaware County.  First opened in 1926, when Flynn was doing some of his best work, Rolling Green has just undergone an extensive renovation.

 

Like so many Flynn courses, Rolling Green is a classic.  Built long before the days of massive earth moving, at 6,917 yards, par 71, it looks and feels as natural as a walk in a green, leafy the park.  Nothing feels forced or artificial.  Every hole fits the eye.

 

Working from old photos and club archives, Forse Design, which specializes in restorations, picked up where an earlier tree removal project left off, focusing on increasing and revitalizing bunkers and green complexes.

 

All hail Flynn.  He would be happy.

 

 

 

 

 

It was good to take in another final match of the Crump Cup on Sunday and, as

always, the golf was incidental to the stroll around Pine Valley.

 

Certainly, some very good golf was played by the finalists, Gene Elliott from West Des Moines, Iowa, and Skip Berkmeyer from St. Louis, Mo, who eventually won 1-up by sinking a 15-foot birdie putt on the final hole.

 

But, make no mistake, the star of the day was the ultra-private, almost mystical golf course.

 

"This place is unbelievable," an acquaintance said me as we walked a few holes together.  This from a man who isn’t even a golfer.  He’d heard some colleagues at the office talking about the Crump Cup and Pine Valley and decided to check the place out.

 

We were among a gallery of perhaps 200, a smallish turnout by Crump Cup final match standards.  The weather could not have been more ideal, and the course could not have been in better condition, but the match was competing against the Eagles at home against the Saints and the division-leading Phillies on the road in Atlanta.

 

Given the mystic surrounding Pine Valley, and the unlikely chance that most hacks will ever get a chance to play a round there, it’s easy to expect that the gallery would be filled by hard-core golfers who simply want to see the place in person.  Those people were there, easy to spot in with the logos of their home club or favorite course.

 

But this year, like years past, the Crump Cup final curiously attracted is share of people who don’t look at all like golfers or average golf fans.  They came in gym pants, various team jerseys, tank tops and a couple sported arms full of tattoos.  One young kid had a mohawk.

 

For Crump Cup repeat visitors, the day is a chance to marvel at the golf course and check for subtle changes from past years, maybe the occasional new tee.  Or to try to imagine how they’d play a certain shot, a particular hole or the entire course.

 

I chatted briefly with Pine Valley president O. Gordon Brewer, who couldn’t have been more cordial, and with Charley Raudenbush, the director of golf and general manager.  After the match, they invited me inside the clubhouse to attend the awards ceremony, where the drinks were generous and the hors d’oeuvres tasty.  The shrimp were as big as a fat man’s finger.

 

The winner, Berkmeyer, was humble and gracious in victory, insisting that had the match gone another two holes that Elliott would likely have won.  Berkmeyer thanked his caddie for all the good reads and the Pine Valley staff for their usual hospitality.  He made a particular effort to thank Brewer, for whom this was his final Crump Cup as president.  After more than a decade at the helm, Brewer will step down next year.

 

Being the manly place it is, the Pine Valley clubhouse is filled with dark wood and heavy, dark leather chairs and sofas.  Everything is understated, from the simple scorecard to the tables in the grill room.

 

The walls are covered with golf-related art work that tends to run toward photos and maps of the course, framed scorecards of legendary rounds and a glass case full of hickory-shafted clubs from a bygone era.  One wall is dominated by a large oil painting of Brewer’s predecessor as president, Ernie Ransome. Upstairs, the locker room is equally simple and understated, much like Merion’s.

 

As I made my way back to my car, the sun was setting, casting a glimmering light across the 18^th, from the distant tee to the green.  What a view, what a hole, what a place.