The Wall Street Journal has a piece on how Obama’s federal electric car stimulus has been used to boost the sales of golf carts:

We thought cash for clunkers was the ultimate waste of taxpayer money, but as usual we were too optimistic. Thanks to the federal tax credit to buy high-mileage cars that was part of President Obama’s stimulus plan, Uncle Sam is now paying Americans to buy that great necessity of modern life, the golf cart.

The federal credit provides from $4,200 to $5,500 for the purchase of an electric vehicle, and when it is combined with similar incentive plans in many states the tax credits can pay for nearly the entire cost of a golf cart. Even in states that don’t have their own tax rebate plans, the federal credit is generous enough to pay for half or even two-thirds of the average sticker price of a cart, which is typically in the range of $8,000 to $10,000. “The purchase of some models could be absolutely free,” Roger Gaddis of Ada Electric Cars in Oklahoma said earlier this year. “Is that about the coolest thing you’ve ever heard?”

The golf-cart boom has followed an IRS ruling that golf carts qualify for the electric-car credit as long as they are also road worthy. These qualifying golf carts are essentially the same as normal golf carts save for adding some safety features, such as side and rearview mirrors and three-point seat belts.

And since there is apparently no limit on how many cars can be bought by an individual with this stimulus, some are stocking up on free carts for resale later. Others have figured out how to turn the electric car loophole into instant cash through a buy and leaseback arrangement.

Its just one more example of the unforseen consequences that nearly always occur when the government attempts to manipulate the market.

Imagine how bad it will be when the feds take over health care—amounting to one sixth of the national economy.

Thanks to John, editor of Grays on Trays for the tip.

What did Tiger learn from his near miss at the PGA Championship?

Don’t play three weeks in a row. Robert Lusetich at Fox Sports quotes the Striped One:

“That’s the thing, (playing) three weeks is fine, but being in contention just about every day, it puts a toll on you,” Woods said Wednesday.

“It was a long three weeks.”

Perhaps not as long as the days since having his unblemished record — he had been 14-for-14 in converting third-round leads at majors — snapped.

“That night was tough, no doubt,” said Woods in something of an understatement.

“I went home and took a few days off, away from golf. I was a little tired of it.”

I think the lesson Tiger should have learned is that he needs to work more on his putting. It’s not the knees and the swing; it’s the flat stick.

[rant=“on”]

And while I’m at it, let me say that I’m tired of hearing about how hard it is to play professional golf. My irritation began when the fawning media began writing about how Tiger just wasn’t the same when coming back after a month off following the death of his father. I know exactly how the death of a father who also was a best friend can hurt. Lots of people do. But we don’t get to take a month off, and we still are expected to produce results. Under my contract, I got two days off. And when I returned, you can bet the teens in my classes weren’t cutting me any slack out of sympanthy. (To his credit, Tiger never made excuses. My irritation began with the media, not with him)

Now, however, the word is that it’s hard to work for three straight weeks. Or being at the top of your game for three straight weeks. Everyone that I know works for weeks and weeks on end. They work under plenty of pressure (Cops, just to take one example, have the life-and-death kind; executives have the livelihoods of thousands in their hands; and everyone faces the pressure of keeping the boss happy and the paychecks coming). And they are expected to be just as good in week twenty as they were in week one.

Or lets just compare sports. How about baseball players in a pennant race? Can you imagine A-Rod going to the skipper and saying: “Skip. I just can’t play three weeks in a row. I need to take a week or two off in August.” Can you imagine Kobe, or Nicklas Lindstom sitting down for a week or two in the playoffs?

No. Those excuses only seem to work with professional golf.

Sheesh. No wonder people argue about whether golfers really are athletes.

[rant=“off”]

The most exciting thing to watch in golf is the back nine on a Sunday afternoon, with both members of the final group trading shot for shot, and a championship on the line. Whether at Augusta, an Open Championship venue, or at a regular tour stop, there’s a terrible tension born of the knowledge that each shot could be the one that wins or loses the Championship.

It’s that tension—that excitement—that explains why I love match play events. In match play, evey hole of every match is the equivalent of the back nine at Augusta on a Sunday.

Geoff Ogilvy said this past weekend that in the course of an entire PGA Tour season, he might face two or three “must make” shots, but would face eighteen of those a round at the Match Play championship.

That’s pressure.

In medal play, players know that if they lose a shot on one hole—or even a series of holes—they can make it up later. Announcers designate certain holes as birdie opportunities where players can get back up the leaderboard, as in: Bob Jones has fallen three behind, but that was the toughest part of the coure ... now he’ll have an easy stretch where he can regain some of that lost ground.

Shots just can’t be “made up” in Match Play. A bad shot can cost a hole, and even winning the next does not erase the finality of that score. There’s also no way to take advantage of an easy stretch. Your sole opponent is playing the same holes at the same time.

Match Play is about interaction, and thus totally changes the calculus. Players must be keenly aware of what their opponents are doing. They can’t just “play their own game,” waiting to go low on holes that favor their shot peculiarities. Instead, they are forced to respond to the fine play—or miscues—of their opponents.

Pulling off a high risk - high reward shot forces an opponent to attempt the same. Conversely, a serious error gives an opponent an opening with a variety of ways to take advantage. 

Even the post-round interviews are different in a match play event. Regular tournament interviews are rather boring affairs, with players recounting their thought processes on various holes, describing course conditions and thanking sponsors.

Post match play interviews are all about the competition. Players describe how their opponent’s putting put them on the defensive, or how their own long drives put pressure on the other guy. They talk about the hole where the momentum swung, and of giving up an unforced error. They talk strategy.

It’s too bad that the professional golf tours don’t offer more match play events. But television hates Match play and this weekend was a perfect example of why: the biggest names were all out before the final round on Sunday. Ogilvy and Casey are fine players—and Ogilvy is a superstar in the making—but the casual audience wants Tiger and Phil. In a medal play event, even if Tiger isn’t at the top of the board, the producers still can give him the lion’s share of the camera time. In the Match Play Championship, losers are nowhere to be found.

Television also hates Match Play’s unpredictable time clock. If the matches end early, the producers are stuck trying to find things to fill up empty television minutes.

One solution might be to create a winner’s and loser’s bracket after the Saturday round. There’s no practical reason for having just two matches on Sunday. Having four more players would offer much more variety. A loser’s bracket wouldn’t have kept Tiger around, but Phil, Ernie and other stars would have had matches on Sunday that the television could have used as filler.

As it is, I can’t wait for the President’s Cup this fall, when match play makes its return.

I’ve been looking forward to global warming for some time. Here’s a photo of the temperature gauge on my car this morning when I pulled into the school parking lot.

It was a lot colder on the drive. At one point, the gauge read -3. But I thought that pulling out my camera and taking a photo while I was driving was a bad idea.

More bad news on the global warming front: An article in Pravda says that we’re entering a new ice age. Now that’s REALLY gong to put a crimp on golf in Michigan. From Pravda:

The AGW (anthropogenic global warming) theory is based on data that is drawn from a ridiculously narrow span of time and it demonstrates a wanton disregard for the ‘big picture’ of long-term climate change. The data from paleoclimatology, including ice cores, sea sediments, geology, paleobotany and zoology, indicate that we are on the verge of entering another Ice Age, and the data also shows that severe and lasting climate change can occur within only a few years. While concern over the dubious threat of Anthropogenic Global Warming continues to distract the attention of people throughout the world, the very real threat of the approaching and inevitable Ice Age, which will render large parts of the Northern Hemisphere uninhabitable, is being foolishly ignored.

It’s funny how these things go in circles. When I was in school back in the 1970s, our science teachers were telling us that the Earth had been cooling since the 1940s and that we would soon be inundated by ice. I can’t find a copy of it on the ‘net, but I remember a Popular Science cover with a painting of the Statue of Liberty encased in a glacier. Here’s an excerpt from a Time magazine article from 1974:

In Africa, drought continues for the sixth consecutive year, adding terribly to the toll of famine victims. During 1972 record rains in parts of the U.S., Pakistan and Japan caused some of the worst flooding in centuries. In Canada’s wheat belt, a particularly chilly and rainy spring has delayed planting and may well bring a disappointingly small harvest. Rainy Britain, on the other hand, has suffered from uncharacteristic dry spells the past few springs. A series of unusually cold winters has gripped the American Far West, while New England and northern Europe have recently experienced the mildest winters within anyone’s recollection.

As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age.

Ice Age. Global Warming. Back to Ice Age.

I don’t know what to think anymore.

I can’t wait for spring.

I copied this poem off a wall hanging in a local golf club the other day. There was no attribution.

Life isn’t always fairways
Life isn’t always par
It isn’t always easy
To go from where you are

The rough may oft impede you
On the journey toward your goal
Or an unexpected hazard
Might take a heavy toll

Keep strong your faith and patiences
Midst all life’s ups and downs
And trust your silent partner
Who guides you through life’s rounds

Nice thoughts.

It seems as though Al Gore finally has delivered on his promise of global warming. I was beginning to think that he was just like those alarmists in the 1970s who told us that we imminent danger of being overrun with glaciers in a new ice age.

Today, it’ll hit 90 here in Michigan, and I’ve got a round scheduled for just after work. Then tomorrow the warm front will come crashing down; the temperature will drop twenty degrees. By Friday, it’s supposed to be in the lower sixties.

To be sure, I actually will be glad to see the cooler weather. In fact, I think that 65 to 75 is the perfect temperature for golf. If it’s any colder, I have to start thinking about wearing gloves to keep my hands warm and avoid the sting of a hard ball on a metal face. But as the temperature rises, heat and humidity increasingly come into play—especially for those of us who walk.

And at the risk of sounding like a metrosexual, I much prefer cooler weather clothes, too.  I like playing in dockers and a sweatervest. I think there’s a relationship between how I dress and how I play. Dressing nattily puts me in a businesslike frame of mind; I think I play more efficiently, with fewer wild gambles.

Here’s to the return of fall weather!

It’s a sad day here at Golfblogger World Headquarters: Summer now is officially over.

In truth, autumn has been creeping up on us for some time now. The days of playing until nine in the evening have been gone for weeks. The air is a little cooler, and I played a round in long pants last week. In another few days, I’ll unpack my cooler weather gear: flannel lined khakis, fleece vest, thicker golf gloves and wool hat.

There still are some good days of golf left this fall, but all too soon in Michigan, the snow will fly. Then I will clean my clubs one last time, and put them in the shed until a thaw.