Chicago Public Golf

Have you noticed the new feature that ESPN 1000 rolled out in mornings? Marc Silverman and a few other personalities go on a little rant about current topics in sports during some of the commercial breaks during Mike & Mike. Well, today Marc Silverman (of The Show) went off on a golf rant. He was making fun of the Masters final round and the prodigious amounts of bogeys and apparent “choking” going on amongst the world’s best players.

I’m paraphrasing because, but here is what he concluded:

…if that’s the best the sport has to offer, then golf fans, you can have it!

Well Marc, I guess there’s nothing to complain about in the land of Cubs or Sox, so you might as well pick on golf. It’s clear that you’re ignorant of the intricacies of the game and you should limit your analysis to sports you’re familiar with; football, baseball, and basketball. Why showcase how little you know of the game of golf by even opening your claptrap? But, I guess that’s what you get paid to do.

If you were the least bit knowledgeable of the game, you would have a concept of pressure and what it does to the golf swing for even the most accomplished players. Pressure that is more prevalent because the Masters is the premier event in golf, on one of the greatest golf courses in the world, during a tournament steeped in tradition. This pressure actually makes it nearly impossible for a completely healthy and sane human to perform the complex action of the golf swing without a degradation in performance.

If you’ve ever engaged in a simple money game with your buddies, you would know what it’s like to have a 4 footer to tie the match on the 17th hole. But if you don’t play golf, or have any buddies, this bit of insight will escape you. In fact, I feel sorry for you because you are probably just a spectator for all of your sports. I doubt you can round up a weekend game of football or baseball. Basketball is one sport where you may be able to actually engage in the physical action against an opponent, but dealing with the mental aspects of pressure and choking don’t really enter into that foray.

Participating in sports that you are a fan of is a great way to get a truer understanding of them. That’s one of the beautiful things about golf, anyone can simulate the same type of pressure-packed conditions that our heroes in the PGA play under. It sets golf apart and is one of the reasons why I love it so much. I suggest you try playing it someday because it may save you from sounding like a idiot the next time you talk about it.

So I wonder, why would a guy that is so helpful to me in analyzing the Bears, Bulls, Sox, and Cubs, destroy all that goodwill with an ignorant tirade on a sport that he is so unfamiliar with. I’ve always been a big fan of you Silvy, and still am, so I say this only to help. Keep your piehole shut when it comes to golf and let Mac and Jurko talk about it (Harry doesn’t know jack about it either)!

I’m happy for SIU, yes, great. They are in the Sweet 16 and played some great ball this weekend as I understand it. You see, I didn’t watch much hoops over the weekend. My eyes were on the real tournament, the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill.

Yes, I saw Duke get beat and watched the end of the Ohio State vs Xavier game, but those did not collide with the golf. As a rule, if golf is in HD, it takes precedence over any other programming. That includes the NCAA tournament, it’s that simple. Those overhead shots of Bay Hill this weekend, especially the last three holes, were amazing. HD really makes the blimp shots shine. They had this blimp shot of Vijay hitting a wedge and you could see the ball sailing directly at the camera then arc towards the hole, beautiful.

However, even if the tournament was broadcast only in regular TV, it still would have been worth watching versus the hoops because of the dramatic shot Vijay pulled on the 12th. Did you see that? Let me see if I can recall it correctly.

Okay, so Sergio birdies 13 while Vijay is coming up the par 5 12th. That puts Sergio at -7 and Vijay is sitting at -8, so it’s getting tight. Vijay is right in the middle of the fairway on the 12th and decides to hit a driver off the deck. Johnny Miller just about has a cow. Johnny called the shot “kooky” or “nutty,” I can’t actually remember which. And it appeared that Johnny was right because Vijay yanked it left behind a tree. So here we are, Vijay behind a tree on the 12th with virtually no shot at the green. If he gets a bogey, it’s all tied up at -7, and Johnny Miller probably gets his ass kicked by Vijay after the round. Who would turn the channel?

Not me, thankfully.

Vijay eyeballs the situation and decides that he can’t go over the tree, he can’t go under the tree, and he can’t go to the left or the right of the tree; so, he goes through the tree. Yes! He has to execute this wedge so that the ball leaves the clubface at such an angle to go above a large branch about 10 feet off the ground and below some leafier branches about four feet above that branch. Piece of cake, huh? He executed it perfectly and left himself about a 20 footer for birdie. He runs it in, which basically won him the tournament, and the announcers start the Vijay love-fest. Even Johnny (I love Johnny) tossed Vijay some love. He said that Vijay “practices more than anybody in the history of the game.”

It was great drama. So this weekend, when in-state SIU is battling for some NCAA tournament glory and the sports bars are full, you will probably find me in front of my TV watching Doral. Because the Blue Monster won’t take a seat behind anything this weekend.

Check out this interesting post at Point 1 Golf. Point 1 Golf is a Chicago golf blog that I suggest you add to your blogroll.

The post speaks to growth of the game and the fact that it has been stagnant recently. He points to a Golfweek article by Bradley Klein who poses that maybe part of it is that “fewer gen-X’ers are growing up as caddies.” Which makes sense. I’m a Golfweek subscriber and Bradley Klein always has some good stuff to say, so I look forward to reading it. The writer, I think his name is Tom, paints a couple of possible scenarios, both worthy of getting me to jump start my efforts, however humbly, to grow the game.

I have a lot of theories on how we (yes, that includes you) are going to get this game back on track. We have to go on a mission to grow this game and 2007 will hopefully be the year when we turn the beast around…at least in Chicago. Here’s where I’m going to focus my efforts:

• Provide a forum for combining golf with other life-enhancing activities (food, fitness, and entertainment) in and around Chicago (Chicago Golfcast).
• Simplify the game and make it less expensive for all with a detailed theory on equipment and playing venues (Trunksmasher Golf).
• Help the community through golf in some way, shape, or form.

Stop back often.

In the wake of the Mark Wilson victory, I felt the need this morning to look through the scoreboard in the sports page to see how he was doing this week in Tampa. I grabbed both papers in the Starbuck’s and glanced at the scoreboard thinking that his name, along with other Chicago connected golf pros, would be in a boldface font for easy recognition. Not so for either of our city-based papers, the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times.

I don’t get this. In the past 24 months I’ve had occasion to read the print versions of the Palm Beach Post, the Orlando Sentinel, and the Denver Post. Each of them puts local players in boldface font in the print editions. Is that too much to expect? Maybe it is. If I have any readers in other cities let me know if your local folks are highlighted somehow in the scoreboard. Maybe I’m nuts and nobody is doing this anymore.

Where is everybody on this issue? Should I organize a write-in campaign to get the names of players like Luke Donald, Jeff Sluman, Steve Stricker, and Mark Wilson in boldface? Or am I just a whiny baby with too much time on my hands?

Boy, this Mark Wilson story is just great. Our main man Ed Sherman has not been updating his blog that often but he has vindicated himself with the this piece on Thursday in the Chicago Tribune.

I may just start milling around in the Western ‘burbs just on the off chance that I run into Mark Wilson running some errands so I can say “dude, you kick ass!” Not only is it a great story that this local journeyman finally won on tour, but he did so after assessing himself a two stroke penalty, thereby upholding the integrity of the game and the integrity of all Chicagolanders (even though he is a Packer fan).

If you haven’t heard, on Friday of the tournament he heard his caddie tell another caddie what club he hit. You can’t do that. It doesn’t matter if it’s you or your caddie, neither can give or receive advice in competition to/from another player/caddie, period! He told a rules official and was assessed a two stroke penalty. Then he still goes on to win.

Read Sherman’s article and let’s starting getting into Chicago golf. Also, relish the 50+ degree day we are going to have and get fired up because the season is right around the corner.

I’ve always thought this was a cool term ever since hearing it used a bunch in my college days. All of the finance majors wanted to work for a bulge bracket investment bank like Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs. It was a term used to identify the “largest and most profitable” investment banks in the world.

Well, I’m going to use this term to identify the golf courses in the Chicago area that basically have it all. The bulge bracket golf courses are the courses bulging with amenities and features that make the overall experience comparable to a high end resort course or country club. The kind of places where you can take a few clients and show them a first class experience that leaves them wanting for nothing, except more of your products or services.

These courses, for the most part, have:

• Top name designers
• Beautiful bent grass on greens, tees, and fairways
• Grass driving ranges
• Full locker room facilities
• Decent eating and drinking options
• GPS on carts

So far I can only think of nine of them:

• Cantigny
• Cog Hill Golf & Country Club
• The Glen Club
• Seven Bridges Golf Club
• ThunderHawk Golf Club
• Harborside International
• Prairie Landing Golf Club
• Stonewall Orchard Golf Club
• Bolingbrook Golf Club

What do you think? Notice that Pine Meadow or George Dunne are not on the list even though the golf courses are top notch, mostly because they don’t have the clubhouse and locker room facilities. White Deer Run may be a candidate, but the bar is kind of dumpy and I think it only has one shower. I would like to put Makray on there, but it’s young and does not have a top name designer. Hey, this is a tough list to make.

I love all sports. Of course, golf is my number one sport from every perspective, but more on that later. For now, I want to talk about how “judgment calls” have been batted around in the media lately and how I, as a golf junkie, deal with it.

The Super Bowl seems to have blown the lid off the issue of the role of officials in the outcomes of games. Not only is the sports media talking about the “worst refereed game in NFL history,” but they are also digging up past transgressions of officials. Someone last week on ESPN 1000 brought up the White Sox versus Angels blown call in the ALCS as another example of the fix. Then Phil Jackson goes on a tirade against the officials in Dallas for not calling fouls on the Mavs because, he asserts, Mark Cuban (the Mavs Owner) intimidates them. I can’t wait to hear somebody dredge up Ohio State’s National Championship a few years ago and the catch (or non-catch) in the end zone. And I’m sure it will really heat up this week when figure skating and ice dancing start in Turin.

For me, I love it. I love the controversy that judgment calls stir up and it does not turn me off in the least. I have learned to expect bad calls because that is just the way human beings work. If it makes you mad enough to stop watching football, basketball, or figure skating, then that’s your problem. You’re cheating yourself out of a lot of great drama and you’re being unrealistic with your expectations.

Maybe one of the reasons I’m so tolerant of this is that my number one sports and gaming pursuit - GOLF - has none of this controversy. Whether I’m playing or watching, I don’t have to deal with bad calls at all. In golf, all you have to do is take fewer strokes than your competition, and you win. That’s it…just hit the ball fewer times…nothing else can get in your way of victory.

My Monday morning quarterbacking the day after the Masters only relates to the competition on the golf course. It’s about who executed the shots and who didn’t. It’s about who crumbled under pressure and who didn’t. I never have to waste my breath on bad calls, or poor coaching decisions, or conspiracy theories. I just talk about the game and the ability of the participants to excel (or not) in the purest form of competition known to man. Mano-a-mano, no coach, no officials. Can you take fewer strokes than your competition? Can you do what it takes to win? Can you get the job done?

Now granted, I have done my share of dealing with externalities in the world of sports and gaming. I am a big fan of Notre Dame football and dealing with off-the-field issues comes with the territory not only because it’s football, but also because Notre Dame is such a polarizing force in college football. With so many supporters and detractors, you can’t avoid some faction blowing some issue way out of proportion. A bad call in their favor becomes a conspiracy by the NCAA to drum up better ratings for college football. The coach has a decent season and he becomes the savior of the program and college football in general. It goes both ways and I have started to relish it despite my large, emotional investment in the outcomes of games.

I relish it because at least we’re talking about sports, and that can never be bad. But for me, a conversation about college football will never be as good as a conversation about golf. Golf discussions are much more constructive, intelligent, and rewarding because we don’t have to waste time sorting through all of those off-the-field issues. We talk about the game - the game that we love.