Bob's Blog

NEWS: USC's Tom Glissmeyer sets Bel-Air CC course record

One of Southern California's most venerable course records was shattered this week when USC's Tom Glissmeyer fired a 9-under-par 61 at Bel-Air CC in team qualifying for next week's USC Collegiate Invitational at North Ranch CC. According to the club, his 9 hole scores were 28 on the front with eagles on holes 7 & 8 and a 33 on the back nine.

The old record was 64 by Sam Snead. Ironically, the round came on UCLA's home course.

Read Ryan Herrington's Golf World Blog report HERE.

WEEKEND NOTES: Tiger and beyond

Although most eyes will be focused on whether Tiger Woods can keep walking his tightrope, there are a couple of other tournaments to keep an eye on:

• Former SCGA Amateur John Merrick will be seeking his first PGA Tour title at the Mayakabo Golf Classic at Riviera Maya-Cancun. Merrick, who won the 2001 SCGA Amateur at La Jolla CC, leads by one shot over Brian Gay after two rounds; Merrick shot an opening-roudn 64. Tied for eighth is 51-year-old Nick Price who, in the pre-Tiger days, was the world's No. 1-ranked player.

Coverage begins at 5:30 p.m. on The Golf Channel.

• Former Pepperdine star Lindsay Wright is in fourth place, three shots behind the leader, Jeong Jang, heading into the final round of the LPGA's Field's Open in Hawaii. She's a shot behind of Paula Creamer and two behind Song-Hee Kim and a shot ahead of Annika Sorenstam, who is seeking consecutive title in the 50th state. Michelle Wie, who opened with a 3-under-par 69 at Ko Olina CC in the first round, slipped to a 1-over-par 73 today and is tied for 41st with a 2-under-par total of 142.

Coverage begins at 3:30 p.m. (PST) on The Golf Channel.

• Meanwhile, at the Accenture Match Play Championship, Tiger — who needed 12 birdies in 20 holes to turn back Aaron Baddeley, will face K.J. Choi in tomorrow's quarterfinals. The U.S. could have as many as three of the four semifinalists or none, depending on the quarterfinal results. Defending champion Henrik Stenson, who has won 11 consecutive matches in this tournament, faces Woody Austin in another quarterfinal match.

Quarterfinal coverage begins at 7 a.m. (PST) on The Golf Channel; semifinal coverage begins at 11 a.m. (PST) on NBC.

Notes on the WGC Match Play first round

Wasn’t it a hoot to watch the first round of the Accenture World Match Play Championship yesterday? Match play is tailor-made for television because good editing can help the drama build throughout the day and there are usually at least a few great matches each day.

Pros have a love/hate relationship with match play because you can shoot a good round and lose (the converse is also true; it just doesn’t happen as often at the PGA Tour level). Lost amid Tiger’s stirring comeback victory yesterday was that JB Holmes made four birdies and still lost (for the record, Tiger made five birdies and that dramatic eagle on No. 17).

One thing about televised match play is that you tend to see more of the really bad shots than those that occur in a stroke-play tournament. From Tiger’s opening tee shot (out-of-bounds) to Henrik Stenson’s gronk-Thurman drive into a cactus on the 18th hole, we saw some amazingly bad shots yesterday. Gives all of us hope! Of course, we also saw some great shots and even greater putts.

Speaking of Stenson's tee shot on No. 18, it should be duly noted that, while I and many golfers would have made "X" on the hole after that opening gaffe, the defending champion hacked his second shot to within 185 yards of the green, stuck a 7-iron shot to within four feet of the flagstick and made the putt for an all-world par 4.

By the way, take a close look at the tournament’s locale, The Gallery, which is located in the mountains just north of Tucson. It’s scheduled to be the site of the 2009 Pacific Coast Amateur Championship.

FOLLOWUP: On Slow Play

The turtles were in evidence at the PGA Tour's Northern Trust Open at Riviera CC yesterday. Playing in groups of three and teeing off at 10:20 a.m., the final group (Phil Mickelson, Jeff Quinney and Robert Allenby) still had the 18th hole to play when the telecast ended yesterday at 3 p.m. That means their third round took nearly five hours to play. Mickelson's group didn't appear to have a big gap in front of it but somewhere up front were some exceedingly slow players. Two-shot penalties have a way of getting players' attentions but when's the last time a PGA Tour player got that kind of penalty?

Contrast that to yesterday's final round of the LPGA Tour's SBS Open in Hawaii. Normally post-round television interviews range from midly interesting to banal (tending toward the latter). However, yesterday's interview with Angela Park proved to be illuminating although probably not in the way that Park wanted.

Park, who was born in Brazil but grew up in Torrance, was assessed a two-stroke penalty for slow play following the 10th hole in the final round of SBS Open. By the time her round had finished, she was still angry with the decision and what she said to Mike Riks demonstrated that she — like many of her colleagues — doesn't understand the rule or why it's there.

Although the LPGA doesn't post its slow-play rules on its Web site, from the actions of tournament officials and later reports, it appears that players have to maintain their position on the course (which is usually defined as playing in a certain amount of time for each hole and being within a certain number of minutes of the group in front of them). When a group gets out of position, an official uses a stopwatch to measure the amount of time it takes a player to make a shot. According to published reports, Park exceeded the allotted time limit on her second, third and fourth shots on the hole and, thus, received the two-shot penalty.

Park's first comment was she didn't think the penalty was fair because "we weren't holding anyone up." That's probably the single thing that players simply don't understand when it comes to this issue. What's behind you is of no relevance when it comes to enforcing slow-play rules; what's happening with your group and the group in front are the only things that matters.

Second, Park said she didn't think the penalty was fair because she was in contention (she was a shot off the lead at the time). Sorry, Angela, that's not the way the rules work. To the LPGA's credit, a player's position in the field has no bearing on assessing a penalty in this situation.

Finally, Park noted that she was so mad that they "flew" through the back nine, making three birdies to finish a shot off of the lead. One would think that might be a self-evident statement to Park about her own play, but apparently not.

Whatever a tournament's policy (and there are many ways to handle the slow-play issue), there's a simple two-word answer to the problem: play faster.

MCDNF: Two words (actually, four) words in response

If you've been following the PGA Tour this year, you know that in two of the first four events, several players have finished "MCDNF," which stands for "Missed Cut, Did Not Finish." Basically, the new regulation — implemented this year and dubbed "Rule 78" — comes about at the conclusion of two rounds. Normally, the low 70 scores and ties advance to the third round, but now when that number exceeds 78, the cut reverts back to the number closest to 70 and those who were a stroke higher receive last-place money and Fed-Ex Cup points but don't get to play Saturday and Sunday.

Tiger Woods had a two-word solution to the problem: play better. Mine would be equally terse: play faster.

Considering that when the SCGA holds U.S. Open Sectional Qualifying and manages to get a field of 84-90 golfers through 36 holes in the same day, the concept that the Tour can't get 78 or 80 players around 18 holes seems ludicrous. Yes, it might mean playing in groups of three and maybe even a split-tee start but the world wouldn't come to an end. They could play in groups of two and play off of the first tee if the players would just speed things up. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the putting green. "Glacial" is my usual description of many PGA Tour members on the putting green.

Apparently the "Rule of 78" may be short lived. Read the Golfweek story HERE.

NEWS: Rancho Santa Fe GC, La Jolla CC to host 2010 California Amateur

Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club and La Jolla Country Club will host the 99th California Amateur Championship, to be played June 21-26, 2010. Both clubs will host stroke-play and the matches will be played at Rancho Santa Fe GC, site of the 2000 SCGA Amateur (the first of Scott McGihon's three titles) and the 2006 U.S. Junior Amateur. MORE

TIDBITS: From the NGF's latest newsletter

In its latest issue of Inside the Ropes, the National Golf Foundation notes that:
• 113 golf course facilities (in 18-hole equivalents) were opened in 2007, while 121.5 were closed, a negative net of 8.5 courses. In 2006, the negative net was 26.5.
• The figures are actually worse because a "disproportional" number of closures were "non-traditional" facilities (stand-alone 9-holers or short courses. They accounted for 43% of the closures in 2007 but are just 20% of the total U.S. supply.
• Rounds in 2007 were down -5% from 2006. A bad December (somewhat weather-related) created a final negative number; rounds had been flat through November, although November had been down from November 2006. The Southwest showed a .4% gain for the year.
• Ten percent of U.S. facilities are now under management and 16 companies account for nearly half of those managed facilities. American Golf, with 159, has the most courses under management, followed by ClubCorp USA, Inc., Troon Golf, LLC, Billy Casper Golf and KemperSports Management, Inc.

NGF Web Site