December 03, 2009
Golf Practice-zine Newsletter for December 2009
Thanks for signing up to receive the December 2009 issue (#19) of the Newsletter. So, this month we deal with: why Tiger Wood's Personal Life is a story, Tracking Your Winter Workout Routine, who to watch at this year's Q-School, a wacky idea for golf fashion/putting practice and my take on performance stats from the 2009 PGA Tour season.
Here is the lineup this issue:
- Why Tiger's Personal Life is a Story
- Tracking Your Winter Workout Routine
- Q-School Watch For List, 2009
- Designer Golf Bra
- PGA Tour Analysis - 2009 In The Money List
Back to Contents
1. Why Tiger's Personal Life is a Story
Why can't we just leave Tiger alone? Tiger Woods, up to now, has been extremely successful in controlling his privacy and his public image. Not any more. Isn't it obvious? This is no normal traffic accident -- the circumstances are compellingly weird.
For example:
- The incident happened at 2:30 in the morning
- He hit a fire hydrant and a tree almost at right angles from his driveway.
- Wife Elin smashed the rear window of Tiger's vehicle to extricate him and administer aid.
- Woods was in and out of consciousness at the scene and found lying on the road, tended by his wife when paramedics arrived.
- Tiger was reported to have facial lacerations and to be bleeding at the mouth
- No public statement came from Woods Co. for over 12 hours post-accident.
- Woods and his agent refused at least two interviews by Florida Highway Patrol
- Tiger contracted the services of a Criminal Lawyer to be his representative. When you lawyer-up, that draws attention.
- Woods gave a terse statement two days later with no details other than to say his accident was his fault; news speculation over the events was irresponsible and that he would not be attending his own Chevron World Challenge Event due to his injuries.
Having thus piqued society's interest, the press is rightfully curious. The Police investigation resulted in a $165 fine and 4 points on his driving record. That's not even the point, it's all the other stuff.
Why?
- Tiger is historically stingy with the press when it comes to controversy. When asked who his team was in the World Series he wouldn't even pick a side. As golf's prototypical marquee player his controlled image amplifies the slightest variance to past perfection. The bloodhounds await.
- Fire hydrants are public property. Traffic accidents are a matter of public record. Straight-forward events beg for straight-forward explanations. The longer the silence the greater the prospects for a story. Tiger's delays will bring a torrent of attention.
- Timing could not be worse. Just prior to his own high-profile tournament/exhibition of invited top-ranked players and on Thanksgiving weekend, the press will have a banquet.
- Sponsors and money. Everything Tiger does has economic implications for the Tour, his agents, his sponsors and his Foundation. By lending your image, your good name to vendors who parlay that into marketable products, investors, consumers and their associates begin to seek what's behind the image to ensure its worthiness. Mess with the public image, pay the price. Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson each had their time in the supernova of world attention to personal problems.
With his latest news release, Tiger will not likely play for 2 months or so. That will lead to more excruciating speculation -- excruciating for Tiger and his family. His agents and his lawyers will be busy. No doubt. I don't blame Tiger for retrenching behind the Isleworth gates. Like it or not, though, I think confronting the press sooner rather than later, is his best long term strategy.
The sad thing to me is, this special athlete -- one we are priveleged to watch in our time -- is likely to become more withdrawn by this experience. He will learn from this, but so should we. At a time when we want more of Tiger, we are very likely to get less.
Life comes first. Tiger needs to heal his personal life before golf and business can move forward. Family matters deserve privacy but he has exposed his family to press attention, not the other way round. He should come forward, address the issue and prepare to move forward.
2. Tracking Your Winter Workout Routine
When it comes to fitness results, be wary of the metrics you use to track your performance. Hitting the treadmill, the stationary bike or the stair-climber thingy will give you blinky red numbers and histograms displaying your work effort, or your "sweat-metrics" as you might say. Be careful what you believe. According to recent reports, improving your workout performance and improving your health may not be the same.
Reports indicate that calorie burn rates on some cardio machines at your club may display "potential" or inflated rates. Companies can market machines on promises, but rig read-outs that artificially encourage jocks to use their make and model. Marketing meets science and accuracy may waiver in the bargain. Keeping stats based on these results are less than useful.
Situps have been criticized recently as a means of improving your stomach muscles. Recent trends favour core stabilization exercises (e.g. the bridge or plank). In general, exercises that simulate the activity you wish to improve in are much preferred than the old, static reps performed on circuit-style programs. More dynamic muscle movements that involve balance and stabilization of muscles involved in game-like motion pay-off more effectively. How long you can hold your self in the plank position is a better indicator than how many reps you can perform doing leg lifts or crunches.
At best, the numbers on machines tracked over time will illustrate a level of improvement or relative performance. Base your rate of gain on your numbers, not those posted by buddies or some age group "standard". Your numbers matter, so keeping a journal of your exercise regime, coupled with the right set of exercises prescribed for the activity/game you want to improve on, is your best bet for future improvement.
For your health, watch the numbers posted by your doctor at your regular physical checkup.
3. Q-School Watch List, 2009
The PGA Tour Annual Right of Pain is on again this month. The toughest tournament in professional golf is compelling television. As usual, there are a million story lines for the 25 players and ties to emerge from the 170 starters of this 108-hole marathon.
My watch list includes:
PGA players from 2009:
PGA players, that are exempt into the final stage of Q-School. These guys have been there, know what it takes and just have to find there game or return to form. Thirty-eight players fall into this category, these ten stand out:
- David Duval
- Bubba Dickerson
- Rickie Fowler
- Tim Herron
- Jeff Maggert
- Joe Ogilvie
- Jesper Parnevic
- Tom Pernice
- Chris Riley
- Casey Wittenberg
Duval, Herron, Maggert, and Parnevic are practically household names -- at least in golf fan households.
David Duval came very close to reclaiming his card. He played on his top 50 career earnings exemption in 2009, his last hope at avoiding Q-School. After the way he played in the U.S. Open at Bethpage, it is really a surprise to see Duval here. But, he seems to have his motivation and his game back. There was some question whether Duval would enter Q-School this year, since his name would assure him of 15 starts via sponsor exemption. He entered at Q-School; he should be a lock to regain his card.
Rickie Fowler almost got his card the hard way -- earning top 125 money in the last 8 events of the year. Bad luck got him. The Viking Classic was cancelled due to rain, cutting his chances at least in half. Rickie went into the season-ending Children's Miracle Network tournament needing to finish in the top 10 to gain his 2010 card. Instead he finished T40. Fresh out of college, his game is awesome. The Tour is eager to tap his marquee value. The Tour could use another heart throb.
Canadians
Canadians include Graham DeLaet, the hottest new pro to come out from the CPGA in the last few years. DeLaet is coming from the World Tournamet in Mission Hills, China where he represented Canada and played very well:
- Chris Baryla
- Graham DeLaet
- David Hearn
- Jon Mills
Recent PGA Tour Veterans:
- Robert Damron
- Glen Day
- Ken Duke
- Marco Dawson
- Carlos Franco
- Jason Gore
- Scott Gutschewski
- Todd Hamilton
- Colt Knost
- J.P.Hayes
- Mark Hensby
- Jonathan Kaye
- Jeff Brehaut
- Skip Kendall
- Neal Lancaster
- Shaun Micheel
- Dicky Pride
- Paul Stankowski
- Phil Tataurangi
- Omar Uresti
- Jay Williamson
Altogether these veterans have more total rounds of Q-School experience than any of them would care to mention. Marco Dawson should have a hole named after him. They've been here enough that experience is more likely to be in their favour. Jeff Brehaut won Q-School; Shaun Micheel, Jason Gore, Ken Duke, Glen Day, Carlos Franco, Todd Hamilton are all former winners. These 21 names are an intimidating group to face if you're trying to break through onto the PGA Tour.
Experience here is not always an advantage. Q-School does more to players' minds than any other tournament. There are 36 names on this watch list, all with every credential necessary to make the top 25 and ties. But there are another 134 trying just as hard to make it. Bless them all. Last year, only 8 Q-School graduates earned their way to the top 125. It's tough to make the Tour, it's just as tough to stay. The pressure never ends. In golf, there's always pressure, but there is also always another chance.
4. Designer Golf Bra Doubles as Putting Mat
Triumph International Ltd., a worldwide maker of undergarments for women, have hit on a design idea to touch golfers. Reported in the UK's Daily Telegraph, Triumph has hit the fashion runway in Japan with a dual function corset-style garment can be removed and unrolled to create a 1.5m-long putting mat.
Honestly, I think they're crazy. It looks okay in the picture -- as long as the prospective wearer is 12 years old or less -- maybe they have a market.
A triumph in lingerie design? Well, you be the judge.
For the record, it's called the, Nice Cup In Bra. The garment consists of a felt-green top that, when removed, conveniently unfurls into a putting mat -- with two cups. When the user sinks a putt into one of the cups, a built-in speaker pumps out a cry of “Nice shot.”
In addition to functioning as a practice mat, the bra incorporates pockets for storing extra balls and tees, as well as a detachable flag pin that doubles as a score pencil. How practical.
The bottom half of the lingerie consists of a detachable pink skirt with the words “Be Quiet” printed in bold letters on the rear. When removed, the extra-short skirt can be used as a flag to encourage onlookers to remain silent. That is, assuming it can be removed without the owner being arrested for indecent exposure first.
According to Triumph -- which has not yet released the garment for sale in stores -- the Nice Cup in Bra was created to respond to the growing popularity of golf amongst females in Japan. I say, good luck to them and to you, my faithful readers, I say that, "I just report 'em, I don't explain 'em."
If you wish, there is a video of the bra in action at the Daily Telegraph website
5. PGA Tour Analysis - 2009 In The Money List
Final money stats are in for PGA Tour 2009 Edition. With the close of the Children's Miracle Network tournament in Orlando (Disney), all official money events are over for the current year. Just for fun, I've done some calculations which may be of interest:
Spreadsheet Bonanza:
- Millionaires: 91 players in the top 125 earned over $1 Million in 2009. There were 350 players (both members and non-members) competing for the prize pool in 2009.
- Efficiency: Tiger won the most (no surprise there) with $10,508,163. He only played 17 events, averaging $618,127 per outing. Top ten players averaged 22 events each and nobody earned half as much per event as Tiger. Phil Mickelson was third at $296,264 per tournament; Steve Stricker fourth at $287,847. Second most efficient was a bit surprising -- Tom Watson came in at $366,302 average but only played two events. Watson made the most of his entries; maybe having the same initials (TW) has something to do with it.
Canadians Mike Weir and Stephen Ames salvaged their years toward the end of the season. Weir retained his spot in the top 30, important for invitations to Special events like the World Golf Championships. Weir is 26th on the Money List, Ames 37th, thanks to his season-ending win at Disney.
- Distribution:Total Prize Money for 2009 was just over $290 Million, a 4% increase over 2008 -- not bad in a down economy. Of that total, the Top 125 collected 77% of the prize pool, meaning 36% of the players, took 77% of the money.
Nobody in the Top Ten made more than 60% of Tiger's total prize money. Only Mickelson and Stricker made half as much.
Since 1997, only three names have topped the Money List: Tiger, David Duval (1998), and Vijay Singh (2003-04, 2008).
- The Tiger Effect: When Tiger was away with a bad knee for most of 2008, money was spread about the same as 2009, with slight differences. Top money in 2009 was $10.5 Million; Top in 2008 was $6.8 or $200k less, about the same as Stricker made at second place in 2009. Number 125 on the Money List for 2009 earned $662,683. The 125th player in 2008 earned $852,752 so about $200k less.
So, take away Tiger (a mere $10.5 Million) and you see Woods earned all of the 4% increase in prize money for the Tour from 2008-2009. Some would say that, without Tiger, the Tour wouldn't be growing at all. There were three more events played in 2009 than in 2008.
One more thing: if you exclude the millionaires in both 2008 (105) and 2009 (91), the breakdown of players making over $2M, $2M, $3M, $4M, etc to over $6M is almost identical. So Tiger's effect on the Tour was to make the overall pot bigger and skim a little from everybody else, mostly from those outside the Top 125.
- Team Comparison:I compared Tour winnings of the President's Cup players, U.S. versus Internationals. True to form, the U.S Team earned more than double the Internationals ($53 Million to $26 Million). This is skewed by the fact Ryo Ishikawa played only two events on the PGA Tour in 2009 plus the Internationals were, after all, playing in Europe and southeast Asia while the Americans focused on the PGA. Still, the Americans did earn an impressive pile of loot.
I've tabulated these numbers from a spreadsheet I developed since Season end. If you want a copy, I'll post both a PDF and a spreadsheet file for you to download on the website. Stop by www.best-strategies-for-better-golf.com later in December and have a look. I'll put the link right on the Home Page.