Category: Uncategorized

2023: Year In Review

“The Year of Living Dangerously”

Dangerously, you say? Why dangerously?

Golf, in general, is no longer as fun as it used to be.

Allow me to elaborate…

The Golf Culture

Let’s begin at the personal level. I no longer have as much fun playing the game as I used to. At the top of that list is the pace of play, followed by the lack of proper etiquette displayed by the general public. They either don’t know the rules of etiquette or they simply don’t care. It is mostly the “new golfer”, but even many of those who are long-time players play slower than necessary or appropriate, and with little regard to the rules of etiquette. It’s frustrating because it does no good to tell them. They simply view you as the problem.

Technology

Technology has made it so much easier than even a few years ago, and certainly much easier than when I began playing the game in the 1970s. Driver heads are now made out of exotic metals and are so large that you can literally put the earlier persimmon driver heads inside the head of a current driver. And the technology inside today’s driver heads is there to correct even the worst golf swings. What’s the point of playing golf if we can swing any way we wish and still watch the ball go far and straight?

This graphic from the 2002 Masters speaks volumes about the problem. After seeing Phil Mickelson hit a 355-yard bomb on the 11th hole in the 2001 Masters, followed by a 97-yard pitch shot to the green on one of the most intimidating holes at Augusta National, Chairman Hootie Johnson decreed they would be toughening up several of the holes. Here are the changes:

And that was in 2002!! The situation is even worse today, as Augusta National recently lengthened a few of the holes even more.

I’m longer today, at 76 years of age, than I was at 26 years old. True story. I never play a round without hitting at least one 300-yard drive, and usually more than one. I used to work out regularly, but not anymore, and yet I’m hitting the ball farther now than ever before. I’m not longer because I am stronger. It’s obviously the technology.

And the problem isn’t just the ball, it’s also those big-headed drivers that allow us to swing HARD with reckless abandon. But, again, at 76, I don’t swing hard because I can’t swing hard – I could break something! – and yet I’m still hitting the ball farther…and straighter. Sorry, that’s not the game I fell in love with.

They’re now doing the same thing with irons as with drivers. For the most part, they’re not even irons anymore, just miniature drivers, as they, too, are hollow shells filled with swing-correcting technology tucked inside and a trampoline for a clubface. It’s how elite players are hitting 5-irons 220 yards. It’s not just the ball, folks.

As for the ball in 2023, the USGA and R&A finally did something, and yet the tour professionals, their agents, the tour operators, equipment manufacturers, and even the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) bitched and moaned and whined as though their world was coming to an end. Yet, all we will see is a rollback of 10-15 yards for the best players in the world when over the past few decades, the ball has gone 2-3 times that distance. What a bunch of spoiled brats. As for the rest of us, we will see a negligible reduction in distance if any at all, and in each case, we’re not going to see any rollback for several years. Here’s an idea for you whiners: buy a couple hundred dozen balls, store them in your closet, and keep playing the current ball until your golfing days are over. Just don’t bother to play in any competitions. You might also want to keep your mouth shut about it with your regular foursome. 😊  

To repeat, the ball goes too damn far. Exhibit A: Rory McIlroy hit Driver, 7-iron over the green on a 600-yard par 5 at the Scottish Open this year. I don’t care how windy it was, that is too damn far.

The Cost to Play

When I started playing the game, green fees were negligible, and equipment was affordable. A new, top brand, putter was around $15-$25 and a full set of irons was a couple hundred bucks. I recently bought a new PING putter that cost $450. Sure, it was a milled putter from their PuttLab, but come on! Four hundred fifty dollars?? Yes, I could have bought a putter for less, but there is nothing worth playing today that is less than $150. A full set of irons today will set you back at least $1,000, and probably $1,200-$1,500 or more, and a new driver starts – starts – at $500, when a top brand driver used to be around $100-$150. The profit margins on today’s drivers are huge, so I don’t want to hear the equipment companies tell me it’s all about their costs. The clubs are being manufactured in places like China at very low cost. It’s greed, plain and simple.

Today, green fees are off the charts at most courses. I remember paying $65 to play Pebble Beach and complaining that it was too damn much. Yep, I’m that old. Today, it costs over $500 plus a mandatory caddie fee of $100 and you can’t get a guaranteed tee time unless you book a room at the Lodge for another $1,500 or more per night. These prices aren’t the exclusive province of Pebble Beach. Green fees are way up and rising at courses across the country and around the world.

Attending Tournaments

I will never attend a live golf tournament in person again. The crowds are rude as hell, displaying the same lack of decorum they demonstrate when playing with them. And the rudest of the rude are those who enjoy their post-shot competition with fellow nitwits who scream “GET IN THE HOLE!”!! or other innocuous pronouncements at the top of their lungs immediately after impact. Perhaps someone should ask these idiots how a ball gets in the hole with a drive on a 450-yard par 4? But they don’t care. That’s not the point of their yelling. It is to hurry home and watch the recorded tournament to hear themselves. Welcome the “new golfer” to the golfing landscape. Isn’t he a treat? And, yet, the Tour does nothing about these obnoxious disruptors. That alone will keep me away from live golf tournaments.

Televised Golf

I started the year watching only recorded events due to the flood of commercials. I’ve been doing that for a few years, but this year the commercial load went way over the top. I haven’t taken the time to do the math but I’m convinced there is more commercial time than broadcast time on golf telecasts, especially when you count the double-box garbage as commercials. So, I’ve given up watching televised golf tournaments, even recorded broadcasts, due to the annoyance of having to fast-forward through the dozens of commercials and the inordinate time the networks spend broadcasting players putting or walking around on the green doing their ridiculous AimPoint thing.

Perhaps the most annoying thing about the commercials is their content. They are the same commercials over and over and over, ad nauseum. All they are accomplishing by repeating the same commercials is to convince consumers to never buy any of their products or services. I now prefer to watch old classic majors on YouTube (which is what I’m doing as I type this review of the sad state of the game). No commercials, and great golf. Nice.

“Exciting New Features”

Ah, yes, let’s not forget the “walk and talks” that made their way on to the Tours in the last couple of years, and even into the majors. Can you imagine what would happen if a network asked Tiger Woods to do a “walk and talk” during his prime while in contention in a a major? They’d need medical treatment.

Let’s not forget the drunken outdoor parties we now find on at least one par 3 hole in every tournament. The worst of the bunch is the 16th hole at the WM Phoenix Open. I live in the Phoenix area and have been in that stadium they build every year. Did you know that it’s under various stages of construction/deconstruction throughout the entire year? How’d you like to pay $250 to play the “famous” TPC Stadium Course only to find a small city being built when you arrive at the 16th?  

Equally obscene are the cute little announcing platforms they build for “Amanda” at tournament broadcasts by CBS. So, the question, CBS, is: Are you broadcasting a golf tournament or a party?  

LIV

Question of the Day: What, really, is LIV? Beyond being the worst thing that has happened to golf in my lifetime, LIV is a hostile takeover of the PGA Tour by Saudi Arabia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund. If that isn’t enough to get our Department of Justice and U.S. Congress to investigate them for their systematic acquisition of US assets, I don’t know what it would take to get their attention.

As for the LIV format itself, it’s a carnival, not a competition. Nearly everyone agrees that it isn’t real tournament golf, and yet Jay Monahan was prepared to enter into a partnership with LIV and give credibility to their ridiculous concept. And for what? Money. Which is the only reason any of the defectors went to LIV, giving up any hope of having a legacy in this great game at the end of their career. Those who left for the money don’t give a damn about the game, and I don’t give a damn about them. They’re making compromises regarding the kind of golf they play by choosing to join the LIV Carnival Tour. They know they don’t like it, but they hold their collective noses and spend evenings drinking Saudi champagne and counting their money. So, yes, please just go. You don’t deserve to be remembered as anything but a money player. You won’t be missed.

So, there you have it, 2023: “The Year of Living Dangerously”.

Golf became less fun and more expensive to play, less enjoyable to watch live or on television, and a depressing experience to see it become divided between the legacy players and the money players as it was being attacked by a foreign country’s sovereign wealth fund in a hostile takeover attempt.

Golf is truly at a crossroads.

Will televised golf tournaments be nothing more than a handful of golf shots squeezed in between commercials, party shots, and guys reading putts?               

Will live events become nothing more than outdoor drunken parties?

Will Saudi Arabia soon become the owner of the worldwide tours?

Will recreational golfers – especially the “new golfers” – continue to pollute the game with their obnoxious behavior and slow play?

Will the cost of golf, both green fees and equipment, continue to rise to unacceptable levels?

Will the game continue to get easier and easier?

Personally, I’m sitting on the sidelines for a while, waiting to see which direction the game is headed.

“The Golf Ball Hunter”

This is an amazing FYI for my golf buddies who have played Settindown (and several who haven’t yet). This guy is a great guy and a great player. He played for Harvey Penick at Texas with Tom Kite and Ben Crenshaw.

He’s the greatest golf ball hunter I’ve ever known. He finds balls as he plays to his scratch handicap and doesn’t slow down his group. His MO is if you give him an egg carton and tell him your preferred ball he’ll give you a dozen. All of the Settindown regulars find numerous balls but this guy is the undisputed king. – Rick Eaton

By Alan Thielemann, Ansley Golf Club, Settindown Creek, Roswel, GA

Thanks for all of you putting up with me looking for balls this year, I realize I drag behind the group at times looking. New record of 3,150, which I doubt I will ever have the interest in duplicating. Here is the answer to some of your questions I often get asked.

1. Most brands found – Titleist ProV1 by a long shot – followed by Callaway Chrome Soft, Kirkland, ProV1X, Srixon, Taylor Tour Performance, Taylor TPX and TP, AVX, Vice, Snell, Bridgestone

2. What percentage are NOT keepers – Depends on how many I reject on the course, but about 15 – 20% end up in the recycle buckets. A lot are good balls, but with a scuff mark… I don’t pick up Titleist Practice Balls, which I find a lot of!

3. What percentage are good, but categorized as “others” (not big brands) like Bridgestone 812, Titleist Velocity, Titleist tour soft, Callaway Super Soft, Pinnacle, Kirkland, Maxfli, Nike, etc. – 25%

4. What brand name balls are least desired ? Callaway Chrome Soft (some with stripes, some not), Srixon, Pink, Red, Green and Orange name brand balls. 

5. What percentage are brand name balls, but not good enough to get egg carton status? (off color, minor blemish, too old..) 5%

6. How do you clean them?  When I get a big batch (50 or more) at one time, I use a brush attachment on an electric drill. But mostly I use a ball washer, scrubby pad and occasionally bleach. Takes about 1 minute per ball on average. 

7. So how many were given away this year? 

20% rejects

25% other brands, not desired by male golfers

5% others

So a little over 50% make it to egg cartons and are given away. (by the way, thank you all for your egg cartons. Last request brought in about 30, so I don’t need any now.)

50% of 3,150 = 1,575

1,575 divided by 12 = 131 dozen

For sake of discussion, everything I give away I try to have them be Grade A, which sells used for about $35 – $40 a dozen. So my guess is that I gave away about $4,500 worth of balls! That said, I love finding them and love giving them away. 

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and shout if you need balls!

Alan

—–

Golf Nuts come in all shapes and sizes. 🙂

The Head Nut

#0001

Fellow Member George Stark (#3194) Has Written a Book

Hey Nuts,

I just received the following note from #3194…

Dear Head Nut,

I finished my book “Tee to Green: A Golfer’s Odyssey through America’s 50 States.”  It is available on Amazon and will be on Barnes & Noble next week!

Here’s the Amazon summary…

In this captivating journey, golf enthusiast and author George Stark takes you on a memorable road trip through all 50 states, showcasing the incredible diversity and uniqueness of golf courses from coast to coast. From iconic, world-renowned courses (Sand Hills, Kiawah Island) to hidden gems off the beaten path (Fox Run, Bully Pulpit), every state holds its own tale of challenge and charm.

Check it out Golf Nuts. Perhaps Santa Claus would like to give it to you for Christmas.

The Head Nut

#0001

This just in from Mike Wedge…

Dear Head Nut,

It’s funny, whenever I book a tee time at different courses, not one person has made a remark or taken notice of my name, so I’m honoured that you love it, and that other golf nuts would too. I was born and raised in Prince Edward Island in Eastern Canada, just up the road from Maine and it is a fairly common name back there, believe it or not…

Oddly enough, up until last year, I worked many years as a Driver for a few companies, so there’s that twist too! No wonder I’m conflicted a lot of the time! 😉

Mike Wedge

Well, how about that? Mr. Wedge…The Driver.

“Honey, your new putter just arrived. It was delivered by the Driver, Mr. Wedge.”

The Head Nut

#0001

Why Televised Golf Is Cratering

“The Tour’s biggest media partner at Comcast has slashed marketing spends, production investment, and is bleeding homes reached via Golf Channel where the Tour’s early round coverage resides for seven more years. Last week, this once mighty one-stop-shop for fans canned or non-renewed more longtime personnel even as the operation was already leaner than it should be for all the hours golf is televised.” – Geoff Shackelford, The Quadrilateral

The reasons are few, yet significant…at least to this golf nut:

  • Commercials, commercials, commercials…and more commercials (Did I mention commercials?) How many commercials does Jay Monahan & Co. think we golf nuts will endure? As many as they wish? More commercial time than actual broadcast time? Do they actually believe that viewers accept their silly “Playing Through” split-screen concept as broadcast time? To make matters worse, they are the same damn commercials replayed over and over and over, ad nauseum.
  • More broadcast time is spent watching players read their putts than actually putting. And if I never see another player go through his ridiculous Aimpoint routine, it will be too soon! Golf viewers do not tune into a broadcast to watch professional golfers read putts. In fact, we don’t tune in to watch golfers PUTT! We tune in to watch the greatest players in the game hit GOLF SHOTS. I realize that the players are all marching to the same tune out there and are all on the greens, tees, and fairways at essentially the same time, but with all the video replay technology available to them, why don’t the broadcasters cut away from all the green-reading and show the viewers recorded shots by simply saying, “Here’s McIlroy’s shot to the 7th, hit just a moment ago.” Apparently, that takes a level of intelligence they don’t seem to have.
  • Speaking of shots, we can do without the interminable amount of time it takes most of these great players to actually pull the trigger. Why do they feel the need to have an executive conference between themselves and their caddie before they can pull the trigger? It is clear to me that this annoying habit of taking too long to hit a shot is a direct result of their college experience where their coach is allowed to follow along with them during their round and “coach” (wet nurse) them on every damn shot. It’s enough to make we viewers pull our hair out…or switch the channel to a real sport…which is what many of us are now doing.
  • Annoying in-round interviews are another reason this golf nut can live without televised golf tournaments. Can you imagine Tiger Woods agreeing to be interviewed during any of his tournament rounds back during his prime…or even now? I can’t. Rather than thinking, “Hey, let’s do in-round interviews! That would be SO cool!!”, perhaps they should ask, “What would Tiger do?” And the players should ask themselves the same question when the network asks them to do these ridiculous in-round interviews or walk-and-talks.
  • The morbid obsession over rulings is another reason I can live without golf telecasts. Who is the genius that believes we viewers care more about a damn ruling than we do about watching someone tee-off or hit an approach shot or difficult shot around the green? We’ve all seen some of these rulings last five minutes or more with the network staying with them the entire time. Then, after the ruling is finally done, the network cuts to five minutes of commercials. And yet they wonder why golf viewership is dropping like a rock.
  • Boring cliches abound in the broadcasts too. Have these broadcasters taken the time to do background research about the players who will be on the day’s broadcast? If I were a golf analyst, I would have a “book” on every single Tour player, and would keep it updated daily. I would also have done background interviews the day before each broadcast of as many of them as possible. Instead, we get anchors and analysts who feed us banal hyperbole over and over and over throughout the week about the same players each and every day.
  • Another fun feature of golf telecasts is the ridiculous interview questions, typically from women who seem to know very little if anything about the game and leave viewers with the impression that they are there strictly for “diversity” reasons.

These are some of the reasons I never watch a golf telecast live anymore. I’m sure there are others I have forgotten. I record ALL golf telecasts and keep the remote in my hand, with my trigger finger on the fast-forward button. And I doubt I am alone. Think about that, Jay Monahan. Millions of viewers are seeing none of your commercials. I’m sure your advertisers and sponsors are thrilled at the news.

Televised golf is in a very bad place right now, and the PGA Tour and DP World Tour had better wake up and smell the coffee before it’s too late.

The Head Nut

#0001

New Member: Mike Wedge

(Yes, that is his name…he’s a natural!)

Hi there,

I stumbled onto your site while perusing various golf articles online and am happy to see that your site exists! I’m wondering if you allow international members, I’m Canadian and although being new to the game at the age of 60 (I did play a few rounds when I was a young guy but it never took hold) but earlier this summer, I acquired a set of clubs that were being given away… They were awful clubs, so I started buying different clubs cheaply online and at local thrift stores and started hitting the local courses here on mid Vancouver Island.

Since the end of June of this year until now, I’ve shot approximately 60 rounds of golf on par 3s, executive courses, and on full courses as well and I did the math the other night, it works out to a round every 2 ½ days… I am now a member at the  lovely Comox Golf Course here, a winter membership that I’ll be extending to a yearly one in the next while… I also got fitted for clubs in late August and have been enjoying my new clubs even if my handicap remains high, there’s something new to learn everyday on the course and every once in a while, an epiphany too…

 Anyhoo, how would I, as a Canadian, go about joining you and your esteemed colleagues’ society as I believe and readily admit to becoming a golf nut in a fairly short period of time, in my opinion anyway… I’m also a musician, and now anytime there’s a gig out of town, my clubs make it into the car with my bass guitars… On a serious note, I’m the sole caregiver for my elderly mom, and this wonderful game gets me out of the house for a couple of hours and is a godsend in terms of its destressing and generally calming nature, and mom tells relatives that there’s now a golfer in the family (she hasn’t seen me play lol) …Also, with my last name, which I promise I was born with, I think I should be a shoe in!

Thanks for your time, sorry to write a novel and I look forward to your reply, whether it’s before or after tomorrows tee time!

Best Regards,

Mike Wedge

Howdy Mr. Wedge,

Of course, we allow Canadian members in our august society. We don’t even require a passport. We have members worldwide, and besides, how could we call ourselves the Golf Nut Society if we disallowed anyone named “Wedge”?

Welcome aboard!

The Head Nut

#0001

Just when you think you’ve seen it all…

“This is #17 at Cypress Point in December 2021…wind was blowing near 70 mph and rain most of the day. Most insane day of golf any of us ever had and the caddies had never seen it before either. My tee shot drifted at least 150 yards left.” – Gavin Blair