The city golf course in Brockton, Massachusetts has instituted a dress code that requires collared shirts and bans jeans, cutoff shorts, and t shirts.

Public reaction understandably is mixed. While some welcome the new code, others defend their right to dress like bums.

I suppose the bums have a point. It is a city course, and as taxpayers they have as much right to it as anyone else. On the other hand, I have noticed that when people are dressed up, their behavior also improves. It’s one thing to swear and throw clubs and swill beer when you’re in t shirts and cut offs. That impulse seems to fade when you’re dressed in khakis and a nice golf shirt.

I can absolutely tell you that on days when the students in my classs are dressed up for a function, their behavior is significantly better.

Interestingly, two of the local courses that I avoid don’t have a dress code. I don’t know if there’s any connection, but these courses also have horribly slow play, and are not particularly well-kept, in terms of trash and such. (Strangely, they are also not any cheaper than surrounding courses)

Clearly, privately owned courses that are open to the public can set a dress code. It is, after all, their property. But I dont’ know about taxpayer financed and subsidized courses.

So I think I’m going to sit squarely on the fence on this one. I like to “dress up” to play golf—I actually think I play better when I’m dressed better. But I’d like to know what others think. Is it appropriate for a municipal course to set a “country club casual” dress code?

Given the burgeoning Chinese interest in golf, Scottish authorities have begun an effort to attract the Chi-Coms to the home of golf.

In the article, Scottish First Minister Jack McConnell said

he admired China’s growing love of golf, but said “a golfer who never plays in Scotland is a golfer unfulfilled”.

Chinese tourism could be worth about £70m to Scotland over the next four years, it has been estimated. Restrictions on Chinese tourists travelling to the UK were removed last year.

The interest of the Chinese in golf only goes as far as the evil old men who run that totalitarian police state have an interest. They have, in recent years, sponsored several high stakes tournaments and are building numerous luxury resort courses. Given that the majority of the country lives in grinding poverty, it seems that they must have better things to do with their money. I find it even more ironic that in the “people’s paradise”, they have decided to take up the sport of the Captains and the Kings.

In 1949, Mao Tse-tung took time out from murdering his own people to order that all of the country’s golf courses be razed to “banish the millionaire’s game.” The bloodthirsty old tyrant is probably spinning in his grave right now.

Even more interesting: the Chinese sports ministry recently announced that it was starting a drive to catapult Chinese athletes into the top of the golfing world. It’ll surely be an effort like they’ve put forth to get to the top of the Olympic games. The government will identify talent early, take them away from their parents and put them up in government dormitories where they will live, breathe and eat golf.

Hmm. It actually doesn’t sound all that bad.

Of course, they may just be trying to find a place to dump all of those counterfeit clubs that they have been producing. I’ve also read that they have exported millons of fake top-of-the-line golf balls, too. (How can you tell if you have a Chinese Communist knock off ball? It goes left.)

However, given that the Chinese claim to have invented golf themselves, perhaps it is they that should be trying to attact the Scots.

I had an impacted wisdom tooth removed this afternoon and I’ve been in and out of a drug induced haze. I’m not thinking straight, so I’m going to put off any more posts until tomorrow.

A recent article in the San Jose Mercury News says what I’ve been saying for some time: that the way to make courses is not to make them longer, but to make them tougher.

In reviewing last week’s Pebble Beach Pro-Am, Erik Pinkela notes that:

The big hitters weren’t rewarded at the Pro-Am, even though the tournament was played on some of the shortest courses on the tour. Pebble Beach (6,737 yards) is the only course under 7,000 yards to host a final round so far this year.

Oberholser won the tournament despite a driving average of 259.3 yards—64th among the field. Mike Weir, who finished second, was 63rd. For the season, Oberholser ranks 131st (281.6 yards) and Weir is 155th (276.2).

Atop the rankings are two guys—Bubba Watson (320.5 yards) and Camilo Villegas (305.6)—who failed to make the cut at Pebble Beach.

Why couldn’t the big hitters overpower the short courses? Simple. All three courses (especially Spyglass Hill) demand accuracy, solid iron play, a great short game and patience with the bumpy greens. By Sunday, the warm weather had made the greens fast and firm, meaning that players had trouble attacking the pins and scoring.

That’s the secret. Narrow the fairways and grow the rough. Make the players make tactical decisions. Reward good play with all the clubs, not just the driver and pitching wedge.

Making the courses longer only plays into Tiger’s hands. If the PGA really wants to see some competition, they’ve got to level the playing field.

Of course, Tiger will win under those conditions, too.

The exclusive Elkridge Country Club in Maryland now is courting its first black members.

The club gave up its Maryland tax breaks in 1977 rather than give its membership list to the state.

Elkridge was forced into the limelight after Maryland Governor Robert Erlich held a fundraiser there in June. The Governor came under fire for appearing at a club that apparently endorses racial discrimination and later urged the club to reconsider its policies.

Elkridge now apparently has admitted its first black members, Baltimore developer Theo Rodgers and his wife Blanche.

In another case, the city of Atlanta apparently has dropped its efforts to force the Druid Hills Golf Club to treat the significant others of its gay members the same way it treats the spouses of heterosexual members.

In find these types of cases (including the ongoing males only issue at Augusta) fascinating because of the constitutional issues they raise. On the one hand, the first Amendment grants us freedom of association (actually, it doesn’t say that, but the courts have extended it). And on the other, we all are guaranteed due process and equal protection.

If the clubs in question were public facilities, or were receiving government breaks, they very clearly couldn’t discriminate. But as private clubs ... I really don’t’ know what to say about that.

It’s the kind of discussion that goes on for days in the political science classes I teach. When two constitutional rights are in conflict, which one takes precedent?

I just know that I wouldn’t want to belong to a club that discriminates. My home club is relatively diverse, and that makes it a lot more fun.

Some guy named Bart won the Tour Championship over the weekend, and in doing so, I think pointed out one of the problems that golf has as a major sport: i’ts almost totally personality driven.

In each of the other major sports, it’s really the team that matters. Players come and go, but the Yankees are still the hated (beloved) Yankees, the Cubs are lovable losers , the Cowboys the self-styled America’s Team, and so on.

Even NASCAR, which is probably the next closest thing to a personality driven sport, has its “teams.” I know guys who root for Roush Racing, and who cheer for Fords over Chevys. (Of course, it also has its personality cults—witness the whole Dale Earnhardt thing. I know a guy who has a whole room dedicated to the Intimidator)

But I’ve never heard anyone root for Callaway over Titleist.

And when a guy not named Tiger, Phil, Vijay (the New York Yankees of Golf), Retief, Ernie, Sergio or Daly isn’t in the hunt, people lose interest.

I don’t know that there’s a real solution here—or even that people are looking for one. It strikes me that the whole upcoming playoff thing is nothing more than an attempt to get the top personalities to play more often.

The official line is that the “race for the championship” will generate its own kind of excitement, but the more I think about it, the less I believe it. There will be absolutely no excitement if the above mentioned one-name guys aren’t in the hunt.

Casey Martin, the physically challenged golfer who sued the PGA Tour for the right to use a golf cart may have reached the end of his professional playing career.

The San Jose Mercury News reports that after he

failed to advance out of the first stage of PGA Tour qualifying at San Juan Oaks on Friday, Martin told golfdigest.com: ``I’ve pretty much made it clear that this would be my last Q-School. I’m not saying I’ll never compete again. But I don’t anticipate it being my main thing.’‘

Martin, who has a degree in economics from Stanford, is looking into business offers.

I’ve always been conflicted about Martin’s lawsuit. As a handicapped person (I’m quite deaf, and have been so since birth), I understand the desire to have people make accomodations. But I also think that a man has got to know his limitations. I would never dream of trying to become a telephone salesperson, for example.  There are some things that the good Lord apparently just didn’t intend for me to do.

And that means that my mission in life is to do the best I can at the things he DID intend for me to do.

I think that Casey Martin has yet to find what he was supposed to do. I hope he finds it. His determination is an inspiration.