BERNARD DAILY: SPIETH in Singapore--Asian Tour shakeup--Equipment releases aplenty--Nantz on Norman--Shackelford interviews LPGA commish
Good PGA Show Demo Day morning. The industry’s premier showcase of equipment and innovation kicks off in Orlando today.
GOLF THIS WEEK: PGA: Farmers Insurance Open; European Tour: Commercial Bank Qatar Masters; Web.com Tour: Panama Ciaro Championship; Asian Tour: SMBC Singapore Open; LPGA: PureSilk Bahamas LPGA Classic
SPIETH arrives in Singapore, promises to be “ready to go”...AP: “Jordan Spieth's worldwide golf adventure continues this week at the Singapore Open, where he says the weather reminds him a bit of his home state of Texas...Spieth arrived in Singapore on Monday after an eight-hour flight from Abu Dhabi, where he finished tied for fifth, five strokes behind winner Rickie Fowler in the Abu Dhabi Championship, and said he was exhausted.”
--“Spieth arrived in the Middle East after an eight-shot victory in Hawaii, which followed his 2015 season when he won two majors and the FedEx Cup title and reached No. 1 in the world. Over the past two months, he also has played in South Korea at the Presidents Cup, in China, in Sydney where he unsuccessfully tried to defend his Australian Open title and in the Bahamas. "This was just a unique offseason," Spieth said at a media conference Tuesday. "I'm extremely excited to be here. I was very tired on Sunday from a long week there. By the time we start Thursday, I'll be ready to go with four full days of my best stuff.”
Betters beware: SERGIO GARCIA is happy to be back in Qatar...EuropeanTour.com: “The 2014 champion missed the cut on his first visit to Doha Golf Club in 1999 but returned in 2007 and has played every year since, with five other top tens complementing that victory two years ago. The Spaniard has finished in the top five in three of the last four events and is glad to be back on a course that he admits suits him very well..."I feel quite comfortable on the golf course," he said. "It kind of caught my eye the first time I played it and I played it pretty much every year since.”
--“Golf ball technology at the heart of Odyssey’s new putter...Mike Stachura, Golf Digest: "The insert that defines the feel of the company’s new White Hot RX putters got its start with the chemists behind Callaway’s golf balls. The design features three elements: a soft base layer, a firm cover layer and a series of oval patterns in the face to create friction. The combination of different firmnesses had two main jobs: soft feel and better roll, says Austie Rollinson, Odyssey’s chief designer.”
ASIAN TOUR board appointed, members pleased by Kerr’s resignation...Reuters: “Singapore professional and new board member Mardan Mamat believes the struggling Asian Tour can enjoy a brighter future with a stronger regional flavor following CEO Mike Kerr's surprise resignation last month...Northern Irishman Kerr quit at a delicate time for the tour, who were deep in merger negotiations with the much larger European Tour despite concerns among some members over a lack of playing opportunities if the deal were to go ahead.”
--“Last week, the Asian Tour said the talks would resume after the appointment of a new eight-man board, featuring four players and chaired by Indonesian businessman Jimmy Masrin. Former chairman Kyi Hla Han was also named Interim Tour Commissioner.”
San Diego Union Tribune’s Tod Leonard’s piece on Rickie Fowler hosting a clinic at Torrey Pines yesterday after stepping off a flight from the UAE...
Hogan company’s new game improvement PTx irons...Mike Stachura, Golf Digest: “For ts second set, the company debuts this week at the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando its first game improvement iron. Like last year’s Ft. Worth 15 irons, the new PTx uses a construction that takes a pass on another collection of industry-wide assumptions. Instead of pressing for ultra-thin faces, oversized shapes and specially heat-treated, cast stainless steel alloys with viscoelastic vibration-dampening badges, the new PTx irons will emphasize the value of a forged construction on feel and shot consistency.”
--“Our approach is to make a clean- and simple looking golf club with a lot of horsepower under the hood,” says Ben Hogan president/CEO Terry Koehler....That technological horsepower starts with two different kinds of iron constructions within the set. The longer irons (20-31 degrees) will be a hollow construction with a forged steel body and a forged variable thickness face piece. Within that frame, 17 grams of tungsten is positioned toward the toe. The heavier tungsten helps to lower the center of gravity and better line up the CG with the center of the clubface.
--“On the mid and short irons, a co-forged design mixes forged titanium inside a forged carbon steel for more consistency across the face….The secret weapon in this two-pronged design is center of gravity location. Koehler says that on today’s typical game improvement irons the CG gets lower as the loft gets higher. Koehler says the two constructions mean the CG on the PTx is lower on the lower lofts and higher on the higher lofts. That means more help launching the harder-to-flight long irons and more help controlling the trajectory on the short irons.”
Geoff Shackelford relays outtake from Richard Deitsch SI interview with Jim Nantz: “Nantz explains how good Norman was in the booth whenever he'd finish after a round, making the parting a surprise to him...So we don’t know what happened there. I am curious. It takes time for people to be together in any sport on the air, to be able to establish continuity and chemistry. When I interview coaches and players, sometimes you can see who is really gifted at rolling out a sound bite and saying it in a way that has never been heard before—interesting ways in making you think. I worked a lot with Greg over the years and I don’t know why they parted ways. I always had a lot of respect for what he offered when he came to his tower.”
--‘“I wish Fox well,” Nantz continued. “Unlike the NFL where everyone is broadcasting at the same time during the regular season, the golf season you hand it off. Yes, we [at CBS] have it for the most weeks but we truly want everyone to do well because when it is your week, you are in charge of trying to make the game sound interesting and advance the sport and document it. It is not the competitive craziness that people want to talk about it. I watch other people call golf events and cheer them on and text them and congratulate them when they do good work, which is all the time. It is a different vibe than you might think.”’
More Shackelford: interviewing LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan…”In a golf world focused too often on getting bigger, grander and cooler, LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan conveys a sense of vision that knows his tour’s strengths and limitations, something longtime PGA Tour tournament directors grumble about privately when hearing Tim Finchem’s constant growth mantra.”
--“Whan’s confidence and restrained ambition heading into the season is admirable on so many levels. Speaking to GolfDigest.com, the sixth-year commissioner expressed his usual optimism and determination to make the women of the LPGA a bigger part of our golf viewing lives….“We just have a bunch of great players, many of them with a presence on the course and on social media,” Whan said. “It’s also the first time we can focus on events we have instead of trying to get new ones off the ground.”
--“Instead of shifting attention to all of the grand new events his tour will be introducing in 2016 after many years of struggling to present a full schedule, this is a year of letting the dust settle. Whan wants to the tour to enjoy the exciting class of sophomore talent that will pursue the game's current elite who consistently bring high-level golf and intensity.
The Top-50 golf courses in the United States - as determined by more than 121,000 reviews from avid golfers in 2015 - today was revealed on Golf Advisor (GolfAdvisor.com), the world's leading golf course ratings and review website. (press release)
--“More than 75,000 golfers in 2015 took the time to share their golfing experiences on Golf Advisor, resulting in the site's Top 50 golf course list, which was developed by golfers, for golfers. ..."You'll find our Top 50 list features a handful of courses you're used to seeing in on a top 100 list somewhere, while others you may have never heard of," said Brandon Tucker, managing editor, Golf Advisor. "That's precisely what we hope makes our list useful. An affordable, over-achieving municipal course in rural Texas has as much of a chance of receiving a strong review as a $300 resort course in Arizona."
--“Unlike rankings published by various golf publications, which normally are geared toward architecture or history and conducted by a panel of industry insiders, the Golf Advisor Top 50 is totally consumer-driven. Ages, handicaps and budgets of golfers using Golf Advisor run the gamut, so the more than 450,000 reviews the site has accumulated over the past two years showcase the golf course characteristics that are most important to avid golfers across the country.”
Top 10:
- Yocha Dehe Golf Club - Brooks, Calif.
- Mission Inn Resort & Club (El Campeón Course) - Howey-in-the-Hills, Fla.
- La Cantera Golf Club (Palmer Course) - San Antonio, Texas
- Las Vegas Paiute Golf Resort (Sun Mountain Course) - Las Vegas, Nev.
- Waldorf Astoria Golf Club - Orlando, Fla.
- Sewailo Golf Club - Tucson, Ariz.
- FarmLinks Golf Club - Sylacauga, Ala.
- World Woods Golf Club (Pine Barrens Course) - Brooksville, Fla.
- Candler Hills Golf Club - Ocala, Fla.
- Cross Creek Country Club - Mt. Airy, N.C.
Rash of club releases ahead of the PGA Merchandise show. Among them: TaylorMade’s M2 driver, woods, irons; Callaway’s PM grind wedge; Vokey SM6 wedges; Scotty Cameron Studio Select putter.