Major(s) News & Notes: January 20, 2022
Upgrades to the U.S. Women's Open are noticed. Plus, Ryder Cup captaincy news, the Latin America Am returns, Keita Nakajima, Rory, CBS plans more tech improvements and lots of other major stuff.
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Days to the 2022 Masters first tee shot: 79
Days to the 2022 PGA Championship first tee shot: 119
Days to the 2022 U.S. Open first tee shot: 147
Days to the 2022 Open Championship first tee shot: 176
Nothing says The Masters is near like Rory McIlroy showing off his gym game. Some social media respondents—such a forgiving lot—suggested he spend more time on putting green. Yet Rory is focused on ballstriking in his career Grand Slam pursuit and the numbers back him up. Before that life changing insight in today’s News & Notes, there are signs the U.S. Women’s Open purse bump got a lot of attention, including with male golfers now wanting more paid more. Gotta love those market forces.
Plus, we have Ryder Cup captaincy news capped off by Monty’s bleak Team Europe assessment, the Latin America Amateur returns to Casa de Campo, amateur Keita Nakajima is for real, CBS teases more upgrades and a plethora of notes and reads.
U.S. Women’s Open Improvements Go Noticed
A few storylines popped up after the USGA’s huge increase in purse money, sponsorship news and enhanced venue lineup.
Sportico’s JohnWallStreet penned a lengthy story on the “tipping point” the USGA announcement may have for women’s sport. He quotes KPMG’s Shawn Quill, who sees the upgrades as a “catalyst that finally leads to a closing of the gap between the sponsorship dollars spent on men’s and women’s sports.” The deservedly story also credits the role KPMG has played with its investment in the Women’s PGA Championship.
The event’s $3.5 million purse in 2015 (which was a 50% YoY increase), caught the competing tournaments’ attention. “Since then, there has been a bit of an arms race in terms of trying to elevate women’s golf,” Quill said. Purses have risen from $56 million in 2014 to $84 million in 2022.
The men have noticed.
While the male players quoted by AP’s Doug Ferguson were merely responding to the U.S. Women’s Open improvements, they did notice the purse increase to $10 million and instead of considering pandemic ramifications or simply expressing how pleased they are for the women’s game, yep, they want to be shown more money. Starting with Webb Simpson.
“Here’s the deal,” he said. “We all know they have it, or the ability to do it without compromising their business model. As a player, it makes us happy not so much that it’s more money, but I feel like they’re showing us respect.”
And there was this from Brandt Snedeker, who has questioned the USGA’s payouts since they signed the $1.2 billion Fox Sports deal in 2013.
“Instead of addressing the elephant in the room — four tournaments we have no control over — keep punching up The Players to push them to keep up with us. They’ve always been lagging behind The Players. I don’t know at what point they have to start catching up.”
Actually, never. As Ferguson writes:
The majors are about prestige. That’s where legacies are created. A green jacket is more meaningful than greenbacks. And players aren’t going to boycott a major if the money isn’t what they think it should be.
“It’s not the money issue I’m upset about. It’s an honor to be at the Masters,” Simpson said. “But as the game has evolved, and their revenues have evolved, I think the purse should evolve, too.”
I’ll let you dream about the visual of Webb saying this to Chairman Ridley.
And finally, while it’s been said here and elsewhere repeatedly, the coupling of men’s and women’s major venues is so vital to this equation. The Detroit News’ Tony Paul followed up on news of Oakland Hills agreeing to host the 2031 U.S. Women’s Open, the club’s first significant women’s championship since 1929. It sounds like the first of many USGA events for the restored Donald Ross course.
Also in Friday's announcement, the USGA awarded the 2027 U.S. Women's Open to Toledo's Inverness Club, which, like Oakland Hills, also went through a massive renovation. It's the latest marquee award to Inverness, which hosted the Solheim Cup — the women's version of the Ryder Cup — last fall. The Solheim drew massive galleries. Inverness also was awarded the 2029 U.S. Amateur. Both clubs are bidding for a U.S. Open, and both clubs would fall under the "cathedral" moniker that USGA leadership has said it wants when selecting U.S. Open and U.S. Women's Open sites moving forward.
Oakland Hills will host the 2031 and 2042 U.S. Women’s Open Presented by ProMedica. That means a likely date with the men’s open some time in the mid-2030’s barring Winged Foot’s expected 2028 date falling through.
Ryder Cup: Stenson, Stricker And Monty In The News
The European captain is traditionally named around this time to get a jump start uniform ordering and to give Club Car time to get the custom buggies built (supply chain!). This week in Abu Dhabi would have been an expected place for Europe to welcome their next Captain. But these are not normal times, as James Corrigan reports on the ultimatum Henrik Stenson has been given by the Ryder Cup illuminati: take $30 million from the Greg Norman-fronted Saudi Golf League, or the 2023 Ryder Cup captaincy in Rome.
Corrigan quotes a member of Stenson’s “coterie” explaining the mandate and quandry.
“It is a heck of a decision,” an inner member of Stenson’s coterie said. “It’s complicated not only by the huge amounts on offer.
“This [captaincy] could be his one and only chance with so many big Europe figures about to come into the picture for future matches. But then, it’s far from guaranteed he will get it this time anyway, with Luke obviously having a strong shout and the case for Karlsson seemingly strengthening by the day.”
Adding to Stenson’s quandary: the Saudi-backed league is still short of enough commitments to announce a 48-player breakaway tour. But at least Stenson has his health…
Gary D’Amato recently shared details of 2021 USA captain Steve Stricker’s severe post-Ryder Cup illness. It’s not believed to be COVID-19 despite nearly identical symptoms that he started experiencing a few weeks after leading to Team USA’s resounding 19-9 victory.
Some 2½ months after the onset of symptoms, Stricker, who will turn 55 on Feb. 23, is slowly improving but faces a long road to recovery. He is able to walk short distances, but it will be weeks – perhaps months – before he will be able to compete again on the PGA Tour or PGA Tour Champions.
Stricker is recuperating in Florida.
And in a wide-ranging interview with GolfDigest.com’s John Huggan, Colin Montgomerie threw a wet blanket over Europe’s future prospects.
“But look at the World Ranking,” he continues. “If everyone plays to their potential, the likelihood is that we are going to lose. Ten of their 2021 team will play again next time. And they will want to win away from home. Because they haven’t done it for so long. And I must admit I look at what might happen at Bethpage in 2025 and shake my head. We might as well not turn up for that one. I wouldn’t want to be a rookie on that European team. For the first time in a long time, I think we could be headed for three losses in a row.”
Down Monty, down! Long way to go before those next two editions. Or
Latin America Amateur Championship At Casa de Campo
The LAAC returns to glorious Casa de Campo following a one-year pandemic-related hiatus. The partnership of Augusta National, the R&A and USGA offers the winner invites to the 2022 Masters Tournament, The 150th Open at St Andrews, The Amateur Championship and the U.S. Amateur.
ESPN2/ESPNEWS (United States), Fox Sports (Australia), SuperSport (Southern Africa), TSN (Canada), Sky (New Zealand), GolfTV throughout Europe, SBS Golf (Korea) and Sky Sports (United Kingdom).
All times ET:
First Round Thursday, January 20 12-2 p.m.
Second Round Friday, January 21 12-2 p.m.
Third Round Saturday, January 22 11 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Final Round Sunday, January 23 11 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Abel Gallegos of Argentina won the 2020 LAAC at Mayakoba’s El Camaleón.
In 2019, Alvaro Ortiz captured the LAAC at Casa de Campo and became the first LAAC champion to make the Masters cut. The event is also having an impact on American college golf, notes Paolo Uggetti of ESPN.com:
From Arkansas to North Texas to schools across the country, the pipelines for golf between Latin American countries and colleges in the United States have been developing. In total, 51 different colleges are represented at LAAC this year, with 36 players in the field either active or committed college players.
You can check out first round groupings here.
Keep An Eye On Keita Nakajima
Keita Nakajima won 2021’s Asia Pacific Amateur and is looking like he will make noise in this year’s majors, including the Masters where his countryman Hideki Matsuyama defends. AP’s Doug Ferguson profiled the pair who played last week’s Sony Open, with Matsuyama winning in style and Nakajima finishing 41st as an amateur. From the story:
Nakajima, already with a strong build and a deep commitment, is finishing up his junior year at Nippon Sports Science University. He is expected to turn pro after playing the Masters, U.S. Open and British Open — he is exempt as the No. 1 amateur — and the World Amateur Team competition in France later this summer.
Nakajima prefers to speak English, even as it’s a struggle at times to find the right words, but it reflects the deep commitment he has to golf and where he believes he is going. In the shower, he is known to practice victory speeches in English.
Nakajima also finished 28th in last fall’s ZOZO Championship, a PGA Tour event won by Matsuyama.
Rory McIlroy Focusing On Driving, Iron Play
The four-time major champion is one Masters win away from the career quadrilateral. To kick off this year’s quest he addressed the “contrast training” work shown on social from Abu Dhabi, saying, “I'm not trying to gain speed but I'm not trying to lose any either, so it's about trying to maintain what I have.” Statistically, he’s focused on better driving and iron play. During the 2020-21 PGA Tour season, McIlroy finished 145th in driving accuracy and 99th in greens in regulation.
“I'd love to get my iron play back to a level that it was at maybe a few years ago,” he said prior to this week’s Abu Dhabi Golf Championship. “You know, gaining at least half a shot to a full shot on the field with approach play. I've done that before I feel like I can do that again. And then as I said, I think fairways hit stats is always a big one for me.”
McIlroy plans on “throttling back and hitting 3-wood a little more often” this year to be “a little bit more of a measured and a controlled golfer.”
He credits Tiger for the inspiration.
“The best player of the last 30 years, Tiger, he picked and chose where he hit driver, and he played a very, very controlled game. It didn't work out too badly for him.”
CBS Returns For 65th Year Led By Masters And PGA
CBS Sports will begin its 65th consecutive year of golf coverage with a Wednesday-to-Saturday edition of the Farmers Insurance Open designed to avoid Sunday’s AFC and NFC Championship games. Jim Nantz will announce remotely from the AFC game site.
Coming off a terrific technology-pushing year led under new producer Sellers Shy, there was huge improvement to all aspects of the CBS broadcasts. Even better, the network teased more 2022 enhancements in a call with media Wednesday. From their news release:
Some of those developments include increased drone usage that present picturesque and never before seen views of the course to provide overviews of holes; additional cameras and more tracer coverage than ever before to showcase ball flight information and shot shaping on key holes; graphic enhancements – including utilizing more Shotlink data to provide additional data on a given player or hole through virtual overlays – and a new, virtual interview area for Balionis with augmented reality to better contextualize different holes and shots on the course.
Also, for hard core fans missing Golf Channel repeats of old tournaments, CBS Sports Network will be running classic PGA Tour telecasts each week leading up to the tournament on CBS.
This And That
The fate of Engineers Country Club has been an ongoing nightmare to fans of the charming course. Now it seems ClubCorp is managing the club for a Dallas real estate developer continuing through with plans to develop part of the course into condos, reports Newsday’s Sarina Trangle. The Herbert Strong/Devereux Emmet design hosted the 1919 PGA Championship and the U.S. Amateur Championship in 1920. It was made famous by the “2 or 20” hole where both Bobby Jones and Gene Sarazen recorded double-digit scores in major competition. More recently, the club has had Gil Hanse and then Tripp Davis consulting on masters plans but has recently turned to Nicklaus Design to accommodate the condos while retaining golf in some form.
Atlanta Athletic Club’s Riverside course is getting a total redo with championships in mind. The work will be done by Tripp Davis. The Riverside is the “other” course at AAC originally designed by Robert Trent Jones and host of the 1990 U.S. Women’s Open. The club’s Highland course has hosted the U.S. Open, three PGA’s and last year’s Women’s PGA won by Nelly Korda.
Jonathan McCambridge says the Queen’s move to strip Prince Andrew of his royal patronages means no more honorary titles at Royal Portrush, Royal Belfast and Royal County Down golf clubs in Northern Ireland. Presumably this also means he loses the same titles elsewhere in the UK. The former Duke of York was the sixth royal family member to serve as Captain of the R&A and the first to serve on a committee (amateur status).
The leading four players who finish in the top 12 and ties at this week’s Singapore Open will punch a ticket to The 150th Open at St Andrews. Only Paul Casey is already exempt.
An anonymous caddie previews the European Tour year he expects to experience. It’s fun. And I’m just not there yet with the new tour name.
Ian Woosnam announced on Twitter that he’s played his last Masters.
Shad Powers profiles 6-foot-9, 400-yard driving James Hart du Preez. The 26-year-old South African makes his PGA Tour debut at the American Express.
Finally, The under-green heating system is working at 2022 PGA host site Southern Hills following last week’s snow:
Have a great weekend. And remember, if the Rams get the job done Sunday, Tom Brady can start prepping for a Pebble Beach Pro-Am appearance. And boy could that tourney could use some star power this year. 🤞🙏
Geoff
After the year Snedeker had, I can see why he wants to make hay now. As far as Simpson, I really don't care if I ever see him lunge, sorry, swing at another shot. More money, really?
As far as The Players goes? C'mon now. It's not the Quintilateral. Keep the faith, Geoff.
Sounds like Webb's 5 kids might be taking it's tole on Daddy's play money.