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There was one big rush. Driving in the front gate of Harding Park after all the other cars had been diverted to outlying lots, passing dozens of guards, flashing my press pass and parking in the front row. King for a day.
For those of us who know Harding Park before it was turned into San Francisco's version of the Summer Olympics, the small city constructed by the PGA Tour is stunning.
The entire practice range is taken up by the Media Center. The Media Center is a complex of three aluminum skeleton buildings. The one for the working press room complete with three monster projection screens is the size of a small high school gymnasium. It is a tiered amphitheatre layout with two hundred individual workstations, each equipped with network connections and executive swivel chairs. The walls are paneled and the building is air conditioned. Golf Today Magazine had two stations. Just sitting down makes you feel like something important is happening. The "dining room" and interview room are attached.
Just south of the clubhouse is the American Express hospitality "tent". It is about the same size as a small Motel 6 - two stories tall - built to accommodate 2000 people at one time.
The parking lot is occupied by the temporary locker room and team quarters because there is no locker room in the Sandy Tatum Clubhouse. (The PGA Tour doesn't get changing your shoes in the Muni parking lot.) The temporary team building is commodious - at least as big as the clubhouse itself. There has to be plenty of space for the ping pong and pool tables. A lot of attention is paid to the "bonding" equipment.
The Sandy Tatum Clubhouse is the true "inner sanctum". The sign out front says "Commissioner's Hospitality". That must describe the way it is inside because outside there's a ring of official security guards. That's the building where all of the cooks, bartenders and wait staff from the daily operation were dismissed for the duration of the tournament and a complete "PGA Tour Certified" staff was imported. The reason is "security". With former President Clinton present on Tuesday and George Bush the elder scheduled to show up during the week there is no room for doubt about staff. Alas, it would have been nice to take a peek.
Across the first fairway are the commercial areas. The "Golf Shop" is about 10,000 square feet with ten checkout lanes. Each of the sales areas is exclusive to a brand and is staffed by factory representatives. The checkout stations are populated by volunteers with a corps of supervisors. Everything is bar coded and organized. The computer system and checkout procedure is faster than Costco. Think of it as a small Superstore dropped into place for five days of business.
After the major structures, there are another couple of dozen smaller units, mainly leased out to sponsors. Out on the course, you don't have to walk too far before you find a concession stand. There's good reason. If every one of the sellout crowd of 27,000 attendees spends an additional $30 the Tour has to be ready to collect an extra million dollars a day in sales. They built a money machine.
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The Presidents' Cup is "Major" by Scale
In comparison to the weekly PGA Tournament events that I have attended, there is no doubt that the Tour is treating the Presidents' Cup as a "Strategic Asset". It's hard to imagine that the investment in infrastructure is warranted even by 27,000 attendees per day.
The not so subtle goal is to drive the "globalization" of the PGA Tour. Given the fear that major sponsors will be abandoning their tournaments in the next two years, the Tour is looking to other parts of the world to continue the expansion that has brought riches beyond imagination to the PGA Tour. The next Presidents' Cup is going back to Melbourne Australia in 2011. But the presence of Y.E. Yang, Ryo Ishikawa, Camilo Villegas and Angel Cabrera make South Korea, Japan and South America likely candidates for 2013 and 2015. World conquest. Why not?
The "global expansion" theory is in keeping with the push that the Tour is making to get golf into the 2016 Olympics. Alas, that initiative took a hit from Angel Cabrera who was asked in a private interview about golf courses in and around Rio. He said "there's not one worthy of a professional tournament". It looks like the Tour might have to put a new TPC golf course in the budget. After all, if you can get to Cancun for a PGA Tour event, it's not that much farther to Rio.
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The Golf Course is Gorgeous
Those of us who live in the neighborhood have been worried about whether our public course would pass muster with the professionals who are used to playing on private manicured layouts. Plenty of print has described the travails of the Harding Park staff - from lackluster maintenance to just plain bad luck and bad weather.
The question about "course conditions" was asked of all players in the interview schedule on Tuesday. The Internationals were highly complimentary - perhaps a reflection of good manners expected of guests. The Americans were not overly critical - perhaps representing their view of good behavior - calling the greens "OK".
If you attend the tournament, your view will be a beautiful city park. The fairways are nearly perfect, loving several weeks of limited play that has virtually eliminated divots. Same for the tees. Same for the practice tee. You won't know the old girl all dolled up.
In the interviews, several of the players complimented the beauty of the setting, others loved the weather. Some even commented that Northern California is a "good market".
I think that the outcome of the Presidents' Cup will be that Harding Park will be accepted as a credible venue for high level competition. It will never make it as a major tournament venue. The parking and logistics are just too problematic. The golf course is too constrained. There is no room for galleries around the perimeter. Somehow, the Tour pegged the capacity at 27,000. That is too small for a big tournament. Next up for Harding Park: The Champion's Tour Schwab Cup.
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All that at a "Made for TV Movie"
Now we know "what?" and "why?" and "where?" What about the "who?"
It's going to take the Presidents' Cup another generation or two to turn into a truly prestigious event that evokes excitement.
In contrast to the Ryder Cup where there is a long history of competition - seasoned with a little "bad blood" - the Presidents' Cup is still basically a huge public relations event.
The American players describe the team experience as similar to a group vacation. In a weird way it's "Back to the Future" - reliving those college years of team competition - riding in the bus and having dinner together - this time "grown up" and accompanied by wives and girl friends. On the other hand, it would be hard to find a golfer who would turn down the chance to bunk with Tiger & Co. for five days.
There's a nagging question of "overexposure". The two year competition to see who makes the Ryder Cup Team begins to draw interest about the middle of the second year for the American side. What's the difference between the Ryder Cup Team and the Presidents' Cup Team? Not much. The same guys show up year after year to play ping pong with the eleven other best players in the United States. Is showing up every fall after the "real" Tour schedule is over going to become more of a chore than a challenge?
But in the meantime, we can expect every golfer who hasn't made either the Ryder Cup or the Presidents' Cup to continue to do whatever it takes to make the team. After all, who doesn't want to be known as one of the twelve best players in North America, Europe or the rest of the world?
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More Drama, Less Headache
The Presidents' Cup does some things better than the Ryder Cup. With twelve members and six matches each of the first two days, everyone gets to play. Fred Couples described what a relief it is as a Captain to not have to pick players to sit out the first two days. By Saturday, when there are five matches each in Foursomes and Four Ball there will be players begging for a half day off.
The real improvement is the way the matches are paired. Each Captain alternates in putting a player on the table. The other Captain can then choose the opponent. There's probably a little horse trading going on as well. The Ryder Cup is totally random in the pairings which makes for lackluster matches. This gives everyone something to talk about. Who will Tiger draw on Sunday? It was a show stopper in Canada when Mike Weir went against Tiger and won. Around the press room the early line was in favor of Y.E. Yang getting Tiger for a rematch.
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The Fundamental Flaw
Golf is an individual sport. We keep statistics to a hundredth of a putt per round. Every official stroke and every official dollar is counted - forever.
Team play is unpredictable. It's easy to play well and lose - whether it's because your partner doesn't hold up his end of the bargain or the other team catches fire. Consequently, even "very good" records are just a little better than 50-50.
The Pros are not willing to take personal responsibility for their "Team" records. When confronted with the question about why he doesn't seem to care about his Ryder Cup or Presidents' Cup records, Tiger asked the question back: "What was Jack's Ryder Cup record?" None of the assembled press contingent knew. Then he asked "How many majors did Jack win?" Everyone knew that number. Any more questions? It would be different if one player truly excelled and won a high percentage of his matches. None ever has over a long period of time.
Without money or a serious record at stake, the best that can be expected is a "spectacle".
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And a "Spectacle" it is
The Presidents' Cup is different from other golf tournaments. Although the scale is grand, the field is very small. That makes attending the tournament much different from other PGA Tour events. At some events it's a reasonable goal to try to follow a certain player. I like that. You see the ups and downs. That's very difficult at the Presidents' Cup. Gallery space is limited. Many of the greens are blocked off. Plus, with only six groups on the course and 27,000 spectators, there will be a lot of competition for position.
A much better idea is to take the day as a "walk in the park". Since only six groups are playing on every day but Sunday, the best strategy is to pick a spot and watch the field come through then jump ahead and do it again. You'll only be in one place for forty-five minutes so you can get a change of scenery. Judicious selection of positions will give you a view of the green and the next tee so you'll always have something to look at.
Then, plan to visit the "attractions". The cart barn is all decked out to try to convince you that a trip to Melbourne is in your future. That transformation proves that lipstick can make a pig beautiful. There are some nice areas to sit and have a drink and do some people watching. You'll want to visit the Pro Shop to pick up a souvenir. If the weather's good, you'll have had a very relaxing day.
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Update Your Fitting for Half Price
We've had a flurry of old customers call in lately wondering about a "special" to update a fitting that's a year or so old. So that's what we're going to do.
There are two ways to go: if you want to do the "full meal deal" - we'll do that in our usual comprehensive way. We measure and chart all of your clubs, we test your swing with the Achiever, then your power with the Shaft Max, then optimize your driver for spin and launch angle with the Launch Max. We'll conduct comparative testing against our extensive array of demos and if there's an indication of improvement, you can verify that on the range. Finally, we'll work through the counterweight testing protocol. Plan on spending two to three hours. For prior customers the price is half off - just $125 instead of $245.
We can just update your driver fitting if that is all you want to check. Same sequence of measurement and testing for just $65. We'll spend an hour and a half, use all of our electronics and give you a handful of shafts and a Nickent driver to verify our findings at the range. You can't beat that for an afternoon's entertainment.
We've upgraded our customer records. In the past we simply gave the testing data back to each customer. Now, we create two copies of everything and save one in a customer file along with any information on clubs we build. That will make it easy to go back and replace a lost or stolen club. It will also help us compare prior results against today, just in case there's been a significant change. If you had your fitting long ago, it might be a good idea to get a current written record.
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Very Cool Clubs
In the last Members' Only newsletter I featured several brands of Japanese irons. We've now delivered a couple sets of the new "raw" wedges from Vega. They are coming back with fabulous reviews. We even sold the first set of "raw" irons, made to match.
If you have a taste for the best but you're working on a budget, we've assembled a few sets of Miura irons in very lightly used condition. They can be decked out with the correct shafts and a few days from now you'll forget that they weren't brand spanking new. And, you'll save enough for a few extra rounds of golf.
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Presidents' Cup Review
I'm going to spend the weekend at Harding Park. I should have some interesting stories for the wrap up. Stay tuned.
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Leith Anderson, Clint Smith, Dian Terova
The Golf Lab |
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