This month, Inside Golf, in conjunction with Champion Sports, are re-naming our Your Voice” page to Get a Grip! The best letter each month will now win a Superstroke Putter Grip, valued at $59.95!
WINNER: TEEN VOLUNTEER UP TO THE TASK
I’M the first to put my hand up and criticise the younger generation, but that might change.
The other day I worked on our golf course, part of the volunteers called the ‘sod skowd’ (that’s how the old boys spell it to make them look cool), starting at 8:00am.
I joined the greenkeepers doing the bunkers. We edged the bunkers, whipper-snipped the grass before we all got on our hands and knees and pulled out the grass roots that remained by hand.
Working next to me was a young man (aged 15 or 16) who started work at 5:00am with the other greenkeepers. He did this over the school holidays.
He worked so diligently ensuring he did a good job. When we finished, he would flatten the face of the bunker with the back of the rake, fluff the base of the bunker and blow out all the leaves with the industrial blower like a professional.
As we drove off to our next bunker, I looked over my shoulder at the good job we had just completed and thought, ‘if I cannot hit a ball out of that bunker now, it’s because of my golfing ability and not our workmanship’.
The young man doesn’t play golf, nor do his parents. But to get up at 5:00am each morning to work on the golf course so I may enjoy my golf takes a special young man and to that I say a big thank you.
Murray Baker, Happy Bunbury golfer
GIVE ME A BREAK
I AM now 73 and I remember when we used to have a 15-minute break after nine holes.
Naturally one would spend money on a light snack plus a beer to settle the nerves as well as lubricate the backswing! But these days it’s all about go, go, go.
Realistically, whenever there is a stroke round (let alone stableford) there will in all probability be delays from say 10 per cent of players because they cannot pick up.
And finally at the end of their extended round, the players simply leave straight for home without patronising their club. So, this push, push, push is self-defeating because no one can relax and the club misses out on extra revenue.
Steve Mansell
CLUB SOCKS IT CADDIE
HAD lots of laughs and revisited many memories after reading the December issue. I will call the December issue the ‘sock issue’ after reading the articles therein contained.
I think there needs to be an issue fully-focused on all the ‘run-ins’ over Australian clubs over the socks that are worn to play (or caddie in my case).
My case involved a ‘run-in’ with the men’s captain before a men’s club championship at my home course in WA. It was minus 56 degrees that day (rain, snow, sleet and wind, etc) and I was to caddie for my little brother in the championship round.
I was sitting in front of the clubhouse putting on my long wet-weather pants that I was to wear all day when the men’s captain came storming up to me and told me to get new socks on as mine were not appropriate (short sports socks with runners).
I explained that I was not playing and was merely a caddie with full wet-weather gear but he didn’t seem to care. There were about 80 people there and the discussion degraded to the point that he threatened to call the police to have me removed from the club.
I said that I was happy to call the police myself and this was when he stormed off.
Needless to say, my offer to redraft the club’s dress code for free went unanswered as well as my request to attend the committee meeting with my wet weather gear on for a game of “guess what socks I am wearing?” with the captain … my membership lasted 18 months in total and my other brother also quit immediately.
A few years following this incident, my brother who remained at the club was confronted by a member about the length of his socks whilst sitting at the bar having a beer with his leg crossed which revealed a short pair of socks under his pants. I wish I could recall verbatim the gist of this discussion, but it would not be able to be published.
Michael Skivinis
STOP THE SOCIAL EXPERIMENT
GOLF Australia is probably patting themself on the back after turning the ISPS HANDA Australian Open into a three-ring circus.
Fans want to see the best men and women golfers compete for the respective national Opens but lumping them together, adding in ‘All-Abilities’ and halving the number of players who play all four rounds has made a farce of our national championships.
Australia’s men and women professionals and our elite amateur golfers have few opportunities to compete in 72-hole events against the world’s best, so it makes no sense that at least 30 men and 30 women were cut after three rounds and consequently were denied the opportunity to display their skills, move up the leaderboard and earn more prizemoney and valuable ranking points that might launch or save a career.
The social experiment has resulted in one less marquee golf tournament for fans to attend and the attendant loss of state and national tourism revenue.
Who can deny the extraordinary success of the three Australian Women’s Opens held in Adelaide? They provided women an excellent platform to showcase their skills and generated unprecedented interest in women’s golf in Australia. So why bust a successful model? Instead, Golf Australia put them all together, highlighting the gap between the abilities of each and we were all aghast when headline internationals decided to give the experiment a miss. We’ve witnessed recent Australian Women’s Open winners progress to world number 1 but last December two-thirds of the international women didn’t even turn up.
Golf Australia should stop the social experiment and return to giving our best players their day in the sun, namely their own Open on different dates at different venues, without the distraction of other gender or ‘Abilities’ events. If it must be done to send some politically-correct signal, confine the circus format to a State Open or other lesser event.
Shane Amor
THE Australian Open telecast was the summit of wokeism for Aussie golf with a complete disregard for the history of the game and a lack of respect for the great men who built this tournament.
Having men, women and All Abilities golfers all playing the same courses might be a wonderful novelty event for inclusivity, or to serve some sort of government or corporate agenda, but for an internationally significant ‘National Open’ golf tournament it was a master-class in everything that is wrong with 2022.
Tuning in to the television coverage for the final day’s play there was no mention of the international greats who have won this prestigious title; names like Arnold Palmer, Gene Sarazen, six-time champion Jack Nicklaus or seven-time champion Gary Player barely rated a mention.
Even Australian icon and five-time champion Greg Norman didn’t register with the television commentators.
Historically, the great Australian names like three-time champion Peter Thomson, Kel Nagle, or the bastions of Australian golf history in Carnegie Clark, Jim Ferrier and Ossie Pickworth? Nothing!
And there was no mention of five-time champion Ivo Whitton, who won his titles as an amateur.
Myself, I turned it off.
Once you could see Adam Scott’s body language slump, I was not interested in watching a second-rate field fumble for line honours.
The facts don’t lie. The Australian Open is owned by Golf Australia who are not in the business of putting on professional golf tournaments. It’s not in their wheelhouse of business operations.
They outsource it to a third party, when really it should be handed to the Australian PGA who organise hundreds of professional events each year. Instead, our precious national Open is in the hands of the woke, where everything needs to be fair and ‘inclusive’, but the very nature of golf is adversity and how the player responds to it.
I have an idea for Golf Australia for 2023. How about they have a jumping castle with clowns on the practice tee so the players can warm up to the true nature of the event and if that doesn’t improve the television ratings perhaps throw in Homer Simpson for the on-course commentary.
Name withheld at writer’s request
THAT’S NOT A WISH LIST
LET me start with the good. I love reading my regular Inside Golf magazine. It’s always engaging and, for a golfer who lives in WA and likes to travel, it is enticing to read about so many wonderful golf courses in and around Australia.
Inside Golf is a wonderful, grassroots golfing magazine and I particularly like to read about the no-name, young and old, local heroes performing well at their club or in competitions.
Now, to your Santa wish list (December 2022)! At best these are a sad moment of personal LIV barracking. Sixteen of your 18 wishes relate to LIV golf.
Does page 40 not register on your radar as worthy of hope for 2023?
An almost 70% drop in the number of rounds played in metro NSW for 2022, tens of thousands of regional golfers losing their homes and towns to floods, millions of work hours invested carefully into golf courses lost to flood damage and you prefer to see a new tractor for Louis Oosthuizen or a time machine for Phil Mickelson than voice your support and hope for a better 2023 for your grassroots readership.
Shame on you! The ignorance is absurd.
Garry Jowett
Garry, I did start the column by saying “silly season is upon us”. It was meant to be a light-hearted piece – not one to be taken all that seriously. – Ed.
GENDER NEUTRAL TEES
IN the January issue, the Bunker-to-Bunker writers were asked to respond a question: Should females – say with a single figure handicap – be allowed to play against the blokes off the same tees?
The wording of the question is unnecessarily divisive and provocative. Perhaps this was deliberate. The alternative question is this: Should intra-club competitions allow golfers of varying abilities – as reflected by their handicap index – play from different tees in the same competition. The key feature of the alternative question is that there is no mention of gender.
For what it’s worth, I think the answer to my question is a resounding yes. Golfers bring their own ball and golf is neither a race nor a fight. Hence, golf can use its well-developed handicap system to enable athletes of different abilities to play alongside (i.e., in the same group) and against each other (i.e., in the same competition).
In the battle for the hearts, minds, time, and wallets of athletes, this is one of golf’s distinct competitive advantages but one the industry has yet to fully embrace.
Geoff Dickson
I THOUGHT we had moved on from gender-based tees.
All golfers can play off whichever tees they choose. Well, at least in enlightened clubs. The only issue that has yet to be dealt with is that all courses (sets of tees) are rated separately for each gender.
In fact, the women’s slope ratings are generally higher than the men’s ratings. So, when the competition is set up the DH for the player must be calculated using the appropriate men’s or women’s ratings accordingly. But have or will clubs get their act together and understand that?
Or is it expected that the women will get a DH calculated on the men’s rating. And that certainly will happen unless all tees are rated for each gender and the competition is set up correctly in the MiScore app.
Name and address withheld
COMPETITION FEES BREAKDOWN
A GROUP of members at my local club is concerned with how the daily competition fee money is split.
My club’s annual report shows over the last two years, less than 40% of the competition fee has been returned to members in prizes. This means 60% is allocated to competition/club administration. A quick survey of golfing buddies from other clubs shows an average of around 75-80% is spent on competition prizes.
Let’s look at this from a member’s perspective. Let’s say the annual membership fee is $800. If a member plays two rounds per week with a competition fee of $10 a round for 50 weeks of the year, they pay an additional $1000 to the club.
With the club returning less than 40% in prizes, this means at best the member is paying $600 for club administration over and above their annual membership fee. So, one could argue the annual membership fee is now $1400 per year.
The board sees the 40% to 60% split as fair and reasonable in these economic times. So, a group of members now only play in one competition day per week and socially on the other.
Sometimes in administering a club, boards focus on the financials and forget the members. There is an old saying: ‘Be careful not to bite the hand that feeds you.’
Maybe boards need to remember this, place more value on the member and not see the competition fee as a revenue stream. It would be interesting to hear the percentage breakdown at other clubs.
Brett Smart
LIV GOLF AND SHARK ATTACK
SORRY Michael Davis, I totally disagree with your support for the US Masters’ decision to allow LIV contracted players to compete at this year’s Masters.
The whole concept of an alternative tour run by Greg Norman has done nothing, and will never do anything to enhance or promote the game of golf.
As for the players who have ‘taken the money and run’, I have no respect for them at all; they’re just a bunch of Judases who’ve thumbed their noses at the organisation that gave them access to fame and fortune over many years.
I really hope the LIV concept fizzles after a few years.
When that happens the PGA (and hopefully all other official tours) should slap a ban on the LIV players of one year for each year they played in Norman’s travelling circus. If the official tours – including the Masters – deny entry to LIV players, I believe the novelty of playing in Mickey Mouse tournaments will soon wear off.
LIV cannot match the history or prestige of a ‘major’ or a WGC event.
Martyn Yeomans
I SERIOUSLY think Greg (Norman) has anything but the best interests of golf at heart when he pushes for changes in the game.
I’ve never read such self-serving, appallingly one-eyed so-called journalism by an Inside Golf writer. I appreciate you are writing an opinion piece, but being somewhat objective is still required.
Being a great and influential Aussie sportsman doesn’t always make for a nice person with pure motives. Take Don Bradman as an example.
Multi-millionaires fighting with other multi-millionaires over where the next $50m plus is coming from is very unedifying.
Paul Smith
I MUST say I agree with Michael Court’s comments ‘Get off the Shark’s back’ – January 2023).
It’s a bit cheeky for Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods to suggest Greg Norman step aside and let the adults in the room sort out the PGA Tour and LIV Golf issue.
Many players and the general public who are criticising Norman have short memories.
Norman spent over six years as the world’s number one player and during that time prize money and sponsorship increased because of his prominence in the game. Of course, the PGA was happy for the Shark to promote and help grow the game, especially in America.
Since the launch of LIV Golf prize money on the PGA Tour has increased dramatically and the players like Rory and Tiger are the beneficiaries. Would those huge increases in prize money have occurred if LIV Golf didn’t come along? I doubt it.
Don’t forget when Norman, in his prime played around the world and Australia had a number of major events like the Greg Norman Holden International, Heineken Classic, ANZ Players Championship, Palm Meadows Cup, Coolum Classic, Australian Masters and others. All are now a distant memory since Norman stopped playing.
Sadly, Aussie golf fans won’t see the likes of Rory and the leading PGA Tour players grace our fairways any time soon. They, too, are multi-millionaires but you can guarantee they won’t turn up Down Under to play in a $1.5m tournament unless they are paid appearance money.
Bring on the LIV Golf event in Adelaide where fans will see world-class players like Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Louis Oosthuizen, Patrick Reed, Sergeo Garcia and others.
Terry Dyer
MICHAEL Court’s article on LIV golf claims that Greg Norman is “doing it all for the love of the game”.
Really? He makes no attempt to explain how. It is entirely disruptive, and is supported, in the main, by a selection of greedy pros who, for some reason, feel they need even more money. Goodness knows what they will spend it on.
I hope the venture fails, and know from my discussions with fellow club members, that many feel the same way.
Tony Wilson
PERSONALLY, I am sick of hearing about LIV Golf and how the players should be given inclusion. Do not ignore the fact that some players chose to remove themselves from the ranking system and have been obscenely compensated by LIV for doing so.
Opportunity cost is a fundamental rule of any choice. It is the basis of all business decisions and professional athletes are not immune to the rules of choice. The opportunity cost of joining LIV does and should exist, especially so given players who joined LIV did so knowing full well what that opportunity cost was.
Don’t forget the community golfer. The professionals can look after themselves and do not need our help.
Garry Jowett
I AND other golfers seem to have a different opinion of Greg Norman.
He may have been a good golfer in his time, but was there really anything wrong with golf as it is? Golf is not just about money.
The majority of members clubs are doing well at this point in time. Many have waiting lists so the future is looking good without Mr Norman’s input.
Robert Burke
I HAVE been a golfer for over 40 years and I’m one month older than Greg Norman so I watched his playing days very closely, but let me tell you Rory has turned me against Norman.
Greg did it himself a long time ago.
He never took onboard any of the attributes of the greats he admired – Nicholas, Palmer, etc.
Rory is always the gentleman and conducts himself with humility as he goes about what he has to do.
Kevin Mills
PERSONALLY, I couldn’t give a ‘rats’ about whether it succeeds or not because I have enjoyed seeing a group of new faces appearing on the PGA Tour.
I remember some years ago a budding Australian golfer going to university in America in the hope of a scholarship and an opportunity to progress onto the tour. He was disappointed to find thousands of outstanding golfers over there all with the same ambition.
Greg Norman wanted an elite competition 30 years ago where the same players were pitted against each other every week. What a boring competition this would have been.
Cam Smith would have become the world number one for a while which unless the rules are changed that is now unlikely to ever happen, however someone else will be waiting in the wings.
If one bonus has come out of this mess it’s that the PGA Tour is now getting it’s house in order and not before time. Who needs disco music, 54 holes and no cut? What next? Playing in sandals and wearing John Daly shorts?
The amount of money being thrown around is ridiculous.
Philip Arlidge
Letters received by Inside Golf may be modified and edited for length and clarity. The opinions expressed are those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of Inside Golf. Address your letters to david@insidegolf.com.au
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