TaylorMade Rossa Tourismo Putter

The Taylormade Rossa Tourismo Putter’s unique shape is designed to offer exceptional stability and forgiveness for straighter, more accurate putts. The ASGI insert on the putter’s face has fourteen groves which TaylorMade says helps to get the ball rolling more quickly and accurately toward the hole. Finally, the TaylorMade trademark Movable Weight Technology allows the players to change the putter’s feel.

I can attest to the ASGI’s effectiveness. The Rossa Corzina that I use is exceedingly accurate. The ball starts out on line and stays there. Unlike some other plain face putters I use, there’s no sense of initial deflection.

Following the flap surrounding Trip Isenhour’s beaning of a hawk with a golf ball, the President of the Humane Society sent an angry letter to the PGA of America. From the LA Times:

The president and chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States wrote a letter Thursday to the president of the PGA of America asking for action against Isenhour, who faces an animal cruelty charge for allegedly purposely striking the protected migratory bird.

Wayne Pacelle of the Humane Society asked Brian Whitcomb of the PGA of America to condemn animal cruelty and take appropriate action against Isenhour.

The 39-year-old professional player struck the hawk on Dec. 12 at Grand Cypress Golf Club in Orlando, Fla., after the bird made noises while Isenhour was taping a video called “Shoot Like a Pro.”

“By setting an example of compassion for the public, the PGA has the chance to make a difference for our communities and instill an ethic of animal protection,” Pacelle said in his letter.

There’s only one problem. The PGA of America has no jurisdiction over Nationwide Tour Trip Isenhour. Trip Isenhour is a member of the Nationwide Tour and falls under the jurisdiction of the PGA TOUR.

But Pacelle made a common mistake. There’s always been a lot of confusion over who is whom in golf.

So lets get this straight once and for all: The PGA Tour is NOT the same thing as the PGA of America.

The PGA Tour runs the PGA Tour (naturally), the Nationwide Tour and the Champions Tour. It also created and organizes the President’s Cup competition.

The PGA of America serves primarily as the professional organization of club and teaching golf professionals. It runs the PGA Championship (which is why there are club pros at that event), the Senior PGA Championship, the Ryder Cup, and the PGA Grand Slam of Golf (an event for the winners of the four majors).

The two PGAs separated in 1968 following a series of disagreements between the PGA of America and the golfers who comprised the PGA of America’s Tournament Players Division. The issue was, of course, money, and more specifically, television money.

The LPGA also is a completely separate entity. It governs the female touring pros. But women teaching and club professionals still belong to the PGA of America.

It gets more complicated:

The governing body of golf in the United States is the United States Golf Association. That organization runs the US Open, the Senior Open, the Women’s US Open, as well as various other events. The USGA also writes the rules of golf and checks for equipment conformity.

In the rest of the world, the governing body of golf is the Royal and Ancient (R&A). The R&A runs the (British) Open Championship.

The European Tour governs three worldwide tours: The European Tour, the Senior European Tour and the Challenge Tour. The European Tour jointly runs the Ryder Cup with the PGA of America (NOT the PGA Tour).

The Asia Tour runs professional events in Asia, except in Japan, which is governed by the Japan Tour. There’s also an Indian Golf Tour and a Canadian Professional Golf Tour. I’m sure several others have been left off this list.

I just finished watching Casino Royale on dvd and thought about this ad.

A new study suggests that the most dreaded of golf problems—the Yips—may be cured with an injection of botox.

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic and Arizona State University are taking a look at brainwaves and muscle activity in the hands and wrists. The research follows up on 2001 and 2005 studies by the Mayo Clinic that show that golfers with the yips suffer from “focal dystonia”, a tightening of muscles similar to writer’s cramp.

That’s led to the theory that the yips could be cured by injections of Botox.

When injected in small doses into muscle, the botulism toxin blocks the chemical signals that cause muscles to contract. Botox is the brand name for treatment. The idea is that the muscle spasms that cause the yips could thus be eliminated.

Even better: Botox isn’t on the list of banned performance enhancing substances.

It’s an interesting theory and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s already being used.

Golf Ball Coaster

Ridiculous Golf Item Of The Week

No one will ever mistake The GolfBlogger for a tree hugger, but this is just ridiculous:

Nationwide Tour golfer Tripp Isenhour

was charged with two misdemeanor counts of cruelty to animals and killing a migratory bird as a result of the incident, which took place Dec. 12 at Grand Cypress Golf Club in Orlando, Fla. The charges carry a maximum penalty of 14 months in jail and $1,500 in fines.

Isenhour was taping a video called “Shoot Like a Pro” and was interrupted by the noise of the bird, according to news reports. He eventually knocked the bird out of a tree with one of his shots.

According to court documents, Isenhour got upset when a red-shouldered hawk began making noise, forcing another take. He began hitting balls at the bird, then 300 yards away, but gave up.

Isenhour started again when the hawk moved within about 75 yards, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer Brian Baine indicated in a report.

Isenhour allegedly said “I’ll get him now,” and aimed for the hawk.

A few shots later, witnesses said he hit the hawk. The bird, protected as a migratory species, fell to the ground bleeding from both nostrils.

I will confess to once killing a bird on a driving range, but that was a complete accident. I hit the ball, and the bird darted right in front of it about 50 yards out, exploding in a mass of feathers. I felt really bad.

But deliberately trying to hit a bird—with multiple shots no less—is just barbaric.

Slow play on the golf course has come increasingly under fire both on public courses, and on the Tours. For most of us, pace of play on the Tours is not an issue—Tiger’s complaints not withstanding. But among amateurs on public courses, slow play is being blamed in part for a general decline (or at least stagnation) in the number of rounds played.

There’s been a lot of discussion about the reasons for the five hour round. Experts blame practice swings, not playing ready golf, and course routing issues. But I think the principal one is that amateurs are playing from the wrong tees. The simple fact of the matter is that most golfers are not good enough to play from the tips (or even the blues)—and yet so many do. Consider:

• The average drive of the average male golfer is 192 yards (according to the USGA and major manufacturers). That same golfer, however, thinks that he hits the ball 230 yards on average.
• Only one in 50 golfers routinely hits drives of 250 yards or more.
• The average female golfer hits a drive of 135 yards. Seniors on average are able to drive 180 yards.
• All golfers, in fact, consistently overestimate the length of their shots—both on drives and from the fairway.
• The average score for a round of golf remains at 100—where it has been for many decades. Just 22% of golfers manage to break 90 on a regular basis. Only 5% manage to break 80.
• The average handicap for a man is 16.1. The average handicap for a woman is 28. And considering that it’s only the most dedicated golfers that bother to keep an official handicap, the handicap for the general population is likely much higher
• Less than 1 percent of the golfing population plays to a low single digit handicap.

Here’s why it matters: Playing a short drive from the back tees is going to add at least one shot for fourteen of the eighteen holes on the course. On a par 4, a drive that falls short of the legitimate range of your short to mid irons (wedge to seven) drastically reduces your chance of hitting the green in regulation. You may have the length to cover the distance in two, but with a long iron or wood as your second, chances are that you won’t hit the green. So you end up taking an extra shot or two trying to get up from a greenside bunker or grass.

Further, if you’re forced to hit a driver on every hole to get the distance required, you also increase your chances of landing in the rough, in the trees, or worse. In that case, even if you DO hit it 250 yards, you add a shot getting out of trouble. On a par 5, golfers not only face this risk on the tee shot, but also on the second, where the necessity of playing a long wood to get into scoring range presents a second opportunity to get into trouble.

Then there’s the lost ball issue. When you are forced to constantly hit the big sticks, you’re going to lose balls. And time will be lost looking for them.

All of those shots add up. Assume three minutes for each shot per player (travel time, locating the ball, picking a club practice swings, watching the ball flight, putting the club away, etc.). Multiply that by 14 extra shots per round per player and you’ll find that each player loses 42 minutes to poor tee selection; for the group, that adds up to 168 minutes. Even with some overlap (two players preparing at the same time), and holes where you don’t actually take the extra shot, that adds an hour-and-a-half to two hours to a round.

Poor tee selection thus explains the five to six hour round very neatly.

I’ll add that it’s possible poor tee selection will add a shot on all eighteen, since playing from the back tees also reduces your chances of hitting a green on a par 3.

Playing from the wrong tees (and the insane lengths of courses these days), also may explain why—even as equipment improves—scores have remained constant. Any playing gains in equipment have been more than offset by the added distance (either by the course design, or self-inflicted by playing from the tips). Players purchase a driver that’s “ten yards longer” and then play from tees that are twenty yards further back.

Playing from the correct tees not only will improve pace of play, it also will improve player scores, and thus enjoyment of the game. And all of that can only be good for the game.