Running 2024 golf thread

A friend of mine now in his 70s used to volunteer at LPGA tournaments, and he never mentioned a volunteer fee. He did say that almost all of the players were very nice.

 

I'll be interested in what might happen with the TV viewing experience (agree on the fan points for sure). I really, really have no interest in team golf, outside of the Ryder Cup. I'm not sure how the home experience can be improved, but that's a lot of money to come up with ideas.

 

LPGA Tour players, at probably a 90 percentile, are impossibly kind with their time (Lexi excluded). Even someone like Michelle Wie West, who I was around for a couple of days late last year, was more than good to people who wanted a quick moment with her.

 

A different kind of golf story. Had heard about the main theme, but this is the first time I've gotten more of the story.

If you don't like it, I don't want to know you.

How two students saved the golf team at Meredith College

 

French guys don't usually perform that well under pressure (Jean van de Velde).
True story: when van de Velde had taken off his shoes and socks and gone into the Barry Burn contemplating his soon-to-be triple bogey that cost him the Open championship, an old, rotund British golf writer who never left the media center leaned back, folded his hands on his huge stomach and said, "Well, there's a reason the French have had to be bailed out of two World Wars."

 

Make more birdies.

 

I was at an LPGA tournament in Ocala waiting for Christina Kim to finish practice putting before we had a scheduled chat. Late in the afternoon, unseasonably cold February day in Florida. An elderly couple were the only other people watching. She was doing a drill and the older guy asked what she was trying to accomplish with the drill. It turned into an impromptu, 10-minute putting clinic where she was working with the couple on their stroke. Then she apologized to me for keeping me waiting a couple more minutes. They're a bit more fan-friendly than most athletes.

 

The PIF put in $2 billion for LIV. The Tour and SSG just raised them $1 bill. The bet's to them.

 

I just have one question: where do the players who are good enough to qualify and compete for major championships develop their games?
You can't bank the entire professional golf industry, worldwide, on what happens in four tournaments. If that's all there was, you'd go back to the 1920s where lawyers and dilettantes like Bobby Jones and dudes with three-tiered names were the only ones competing.

 

I'm not sure he'd be calling himself that unless the SSG boys told him he was staying on.

 

Don't disagree with you at all. But as far as wide-ranging interest goes, it's tough for the average sports fan (not a golf sicko like myself) to care about what happens at the Rocket Mortgage. They engage at the majors. The obsessive Tiger coverage came with some consequence, too. I get it, not many golfers are as interesting as him nor has anybody been dominant on the level that he was in his prime. But there are a lot of good stories to tell out there, and yet, whenever there's a hint that 48-year-old Tiger will tee it up, it turns back into that circus again. I did find it interesting this week that players started talking about the broken golf coverage model, especially on broadcast. We just want to watch golf shots, and the networks struggle to give us that through the endless waves of commercials.