In the parlance of the seers and soothsayers, we lucky few who can envision the future with some degree of reliability, these things are called harbingers.
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| John Daly isn't pleased about the new cut rule. (Getty Images) |
After several years of covering these guys, who have set the sports standard for self-absorption, it was no surprise that darned few of them knew the rule was in the offing. Thus, many descriptive terms began with the word "effing."
When Rod Stewart croaked and crooned that the first cut is the deepest, he wasn't talking about this.
"I don't understand the rule; I think it's crazy," John Daly said. "It's a stupid rule, I'm sorry."
In a roundabout way, the tour's first spot fire of the year is what poker players call a "tell," a sure sign of things to come. If the players won't take time to study something as important as a new cut provision, wait until they try to wade through the tour's new 40-page booklet on the forthcoming drug policy.
Charley Hoffman, defending champion at this week's Bob Hope Classic, said it isn't exactly a page-turner and quickly tossed it aside.
"My theory was, if you're not doing drugs you don't really need to worry about it," Hoffman said. "If Bud Light's not on the banned list, I'm going to be all right."
Ah, ignorance is bliss, right? Actually, ignorance has been banned, too. Commissioner Tim Finchem has mustered his forces to ensure that nobody can use stupidity as a defense in the event that they produce a positive test.
So while Hoffman cracks open a carton of beer, the third leg of our PGA Tour season preview will be eyeballing the other potentially tasty cases of 2008, those novel and noteworthy trends, issues and unanswered questions that will all but surely arise at some point along the way.
Remember, we told you so.
Would Jeff Spicoli lose his tour card?
Most of the tour types are such nerds, they think "scoring some weed" means gouging a divot out of the high hay. Nonetheless, unlike the NBA, the new tour drug policy pertains to not only performance-enhancing drugs like steroids, human growth hormones or certain sedatives, but street drugs like marijuana.
After getting cuffed around a bit last fall by players who never took the time to read the rules with regard to the FedEx Cup points system -- and then complained about it -- Finchem has thinned his wallet by sending counselors on the road to each event to advise players on the new regs. A mandatory player meeting is scheduled for next week to outline the new provisions, set to begin July 1. Literature has been distributed and a 24-hour hotline has been established.
"This is not the FedEx Cup," Finchem said when the rules were first announced last fall.
In other words, no excuses: I didn't inhale. It was second-hand smoke. My physician, Dr. Feelgood, said it was medicinal. I'm Rastafarian and it's part of my religion, mon.
Finchem said there's too much at stake not to spend the money to educate the ignorant, the unwilling and the uninitiated. Even though few believe there's a problem, the game needs to prove its purity.
"See, here's the thing," Finchem said last week. "When you say there's no (drug) problem, you have to remember, this is the first time in the history of the game that golf has said that there is a regulation that prohibits you taking a performance-enhancing substance. There have never been any rules in this area in the past. We never cared about it. We have never concluded that there are any substances out there that if you take, it might enhance your performance.
"We're actually not certain there is today. (But) that's not the reason we're going down this path. We're going down this path because the public fan base around the world generally are concluding that athletes, regardless of the sport, are enhancing their position because of use of substances, and we think it's important that sports generally be on the same page, number one. And number two, the way we're headed, if players were to start taking stuff, regardless of a rule, it could jeopardize the image of the sport, and the image of our sport is our No. 1 asset."
Players will be tested randomly and without warning, though the testing patterns and timing will be left intentionally in flux. Finchem wouldn't disclose how many players will be tested weekly -- or confirm if tests will be conducted at each event. The estimated cost for the first year is $1.5 million, he said.
Penalties include disqualification, ineligibility for up to one year for a first violation, a potential five-year ban for a second violation and a lifetime ban for multiple violations. Fines could climb as high as $500,000. The traditionally secretive tour indicated it would make public the names of any player who is sanctioned.
So, with all that at stake, if you were a player, wouldn't you be reading more than just your daily scorecard?
Eight Aces and Four Jokers
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| Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger will have more authority when picking his team. (Getty Images) |
How else to explain the rebooted system of picking the U.S. team for the Ryder Cup, which the American side has lost by record margins in each of the past two stagings?
Trashing the old points qualifying system in an attempt to give captain Paul Azinger more autonomy to pick the hottest players, the new selection criteria uses the money list (see, the money is still more important than FedEx Cup points) and emphasizes performance in the majors leading up to the event, Sept. 19-21 in Louisville.
Moreover, only eight players will automatically qualify instead of 10, so Azinger gets to pick four wild-card golfers, which opens him up for massive amounts of criticism or acclaim, depending on how this plan plays out. We're not making any predictions, but when this is over, remember that Azinger insisted on having more discretionary picks.
Shake Your Groove Thing
The USGA, which in the eyes of many has set the standard for weasely, spineless behavior for failing to reign in the golf ball, is supposedly in the midst of establishing a new standard for grooves on irons, initially set for implementation in early 2009.
Professionals using the current U-groove clubs have been able to spin the ball so effectively from the rough, it barely matters when they miss the fairway, resulting in what we call Dump-and-Chase golf, which has fueled an overall de-emphasis on accuracy off the tee and shotmaking in general. To the applause of many, the USGA announced last March that it was soliciting comment on an impending move to a less biting V-groove design on irons, but now it appears that implementation for the start of the 2009 season is shaky at best.
Are manufacturers worried? Uh, hardly. Last week, TaylorMade exec Sean Toulon unveiled his company's new Z-groove wedges at a media confab in Orlando and said with a smirk, "They're really not going to like these."
The USGA has indicated over the past week that no certain course of action has been set, which in the parlance of we barstool jurists means they could cave and write off the whole idea rather than face potential lawsuits or complaints from equipment makers.
What I Did on my Summer Vacation: By Tiger Woods
For the first time since 1989, everybody will be playing hooky, not golf, in midseason. That is, if playing hooky means you have been issued an excused absence by the principal's office.
In a remarkable step, in order to create more spacing in the jammed, big-money FedEx Cup series portion of the schedule in August and September, the tour implemented its first dark week in 19 years. As a solution to a major scheduling crunch, no event will be played Sept. 8-14, making it a veritable bye week for all parties involved.
Speaking of parties, let's all watch some college football, huh?
Cutting to the quick, the dark week was implemented for the benefit of a tiny cadre of players, most notably Woods and Phil Mickelson, who both skipped one of the four FedEx series events last fall because they didn't want to play four weeks in a row on the heels of the PGA Championship, and with the Presidents Cup soon to follow. Since the series schedule was overhauled specifically for them, they'd better show up to play, right?
Dastardly by Design?
It was a compelling trend that first took root during the Florida Swing, which produced unusually high scores.
Then came Augusta National and the U.S. Open, which generated winning scores that were above par. Birdie averages dropped, scores went north, and players noted that course setup had stiffened considerably in 2007. Well, except that it wasn't really intentional.
Tour officials insisted that a series of new courses and weather conditions were mostly to blame -- anybody could see that was the case at frigid Augusta or on the toughened track used at the Honda Classic -- but other events seemed long on punishment and short on birdies. Is that what fans really want to see every week, players quite rightly asked?
FedEx Cup, Revised and Revisited
OK, so it took more than a year for the tour to realize that playing the Ryder Cup on the heels of four consecutive FedEx Cup events was a stupid idea.
But do the scheduling changes mean Mickelson and Woods, unlike last year, will deign to play in all four of the so-called playoff events? Stay tuned, since neither has yet offered an opinion on the subject. Already, the tour is said to be considering changing the points structure -- the subject of much consternation and complaining in Year 1 -- and moving the playoff-opening Barclays event to a different site, at least in theory to appease Woods, who didn't like last year's site, Westchester Country Club.
The FedEx Cup delivered excitement and drama at a point in the season where most fans had usually tuned out, but there was precious little volatility in the points. So the model will be overhauled, which is where the fun begins, because many players never took the time to learn how the old system worked.
Not-So-Fab Five
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| K.J. Choi has outplayed several of Tiger Woods' more well-known rivals recently. (Getty Images) |
But Retief Goosen is in a veritable career free-fall and Ernie Els is skipping the first two months of the PGA Tour season in order to better prepare for the majors. Neither won in the States last year.
So, in reality, the dropoff from Woods and Lefty in the two top spots in the world rankings has never seemed more stark, both in reality and perception. Woods might win the Grand Slam by default.
With four wins in 15 months, does K.J. Choi stand as Woods' second biggest potential rival? Don't laugh. Only Choi and Mickelson can boast that they each won twice last year with Woods in the field.
King Meets the Fresh Prince
Nobody has piled up victories faster than Woods, who this season is on the cusp of even more heretical burnings of the tour record book.
With his next victory -- mind you, he is the three-time defending champion at next week's Buick Invitational in San Diego, where he will make his season debut -- he will move into a fourth-place tie with Arnold Palmer in tour victories with 62.
Just past the King, Ben Hogan stands third with 64, another mark that's on life support. If the incomparable Woods plays to his career average by winning five times over each of the next four seasons, he could eclipse Sam Snead's record of 82 victories by the end of 2011, by which time Woods will be 35 years old.
A staggering thought: Singh is 44 and still piling up multiple wins every year. Woods could reach triple-figures and then some, unless he gets bored.
For Grownups Only
The paucity of players in their 30s with multiple tour victories has long been a source of increasing frustrations for Americans. After Jan. 28, when Jonathan Byrd turns 30, native son Charles Howell will be the last 20-something with two or more wins on the world's toughest tour.
But that's half the story, and it unfairly singles out the Americans.
Beginning with the U.S. Open last year, staged shortly after Aussie Geoff Ogilvy and American Ben Curtis turned 30, a new threshold of pain and punishment was reached for the younger set.
As it stands, for the first time since 1991 and only the second time in the television era, there no longer are any players in their 20s with a major championship to their credit.
There's a glimmer of hope for the kiddie corps, however. Three of the four majors last year were captured by first-timers, although all were veteran players
Of the People, By the People, For the People
Having finally seen the presidency of controversial, embattled Walter Driver come to an end, the USGA took another hit when the officials at famed private club Winged Foot elected not to seek the U.S. Open in 2015. In short, it's too much hassle, wreaks too much damage to the grounds and generates too little financial windfall.
Just as well, because plenty of public courses are lining up to host the national championship. Beginning in June at Torrey Pines, the municipal seaside gem in San Diego, the U.S. Open will be staged at three consecutive public-access tracks. The Open returns to Bethpage Black and Pebble Beach in 2009 and 2010, where Woods won the national title the last time it was staged there.
The USGA bluebloods have turned blue collar, just in time. Given that the organization represents all golfers in the country and the Open stands as the ultimate democratic event -– the move toward public tracks seems both apt and overdue.
