|
|
|
Baxter's Babble
Letters to Baxter
Well – this month I decided to a little thing different with the article. It appears that there are some folks who actually read my little column. So – I figured I would share some of them and take the opportunity to reply to “my readers.” To protect their identity, I gave each a little pen name, but all were kind enough to introduce themselves and let me know who they were or I didn’t feel I should print their letter. To check out any of the articles reference below, just scroll down on this page.
Baxter:
Something you’re not taking into consideration when commenting on steroids and professional golf is that not all anabolic steroids make you bigger. Some simply make you a lot stronger with minimally visible size gains. Another fact to consider is that while steroid-using weightlifters and sprinters are easier to spot because of more muscle mass and definition, this is partly because they’re doing exercises that would naturally spur muscle growth in the first place. Unless a golfer was also doing heavy or rapid weight training exercises, you wouldn’t likely see the ripped up physiques you’re expecting.
I speak from experience regarding steroids. Although quite some time ago, I did them for about 2 years and the gains are shocking. As you admit to not know a lot about them the following is not directed toward you - the people who DO know about steroids who claim that they won’t help, or “may not” help are completely full of it. Will it help a chronic slicer hit it straighter? Definitely not. But will it help someone who already hits it straight hit it longer? There’s just no doubt about it.
Sincerely,
Bulked-Up Billy
Bulky:
Thanks again for the email and thanks for the clarification. Certainly your first-hand experience is more on target than the ramblings of this old man. Your comments are especially interesting since the drug testing finally kicked into practice in July, although so far (as of print time) nothing has been uncovered or at least made public by the PGA. Given your comments, maybe there is something to be concerned about and to test for. Although even if there is, I’ll stick to my argument that golf is a game of honor and the powers-that-be shouldn’t have to police players. They should police themselves.
Regards,
Baxter
Well Baxter, it looks like you and Wesley get a chance to settle your argument. Tiger is out for the year so we’ll see how much attention the rest of the golf season will get. I tend to agree with you that we won’t see much attention and viewers will drop off. I bet Commissioner Finchem is scared to death right now and wants him back immediately. Meanwhile, all the other pros are looking at this as a bitter-sweet moment—perhaps a chance to win a major or a number of tournaments without Tiger hunting them, but also perhaps an issue if sponsors drop tournaments and purses lighten up. Anyway – I quit watching. I mean I love golf and love watching it at the highest level, but it’s not the same without Tiger.
Yours truly,
Not-Gonna-Watch Walter
Wally:
Thanks for the letter, but I am disappointed in your last statement. How can you say you like golf but won’t watch because one guy is not in the field. I agree he brings a lot to the game and is fun to watch, but he doesn’t win ’em all. Don’t underestimate the talent and excitement the rest of the field brings to the game. Each week there is a story-line and drama to enjoy. Whether it is Kenny Perry with an excellent season at his advanced age (although compared to me he’s still a pup), or whether some other young up-and-comer like Anthony Kim having a remarkable break-through season with two wins of his own. If you ain’t watching just because Tiger isn’t there, you are sorely missing out. Tune in and check it out.
Regards,
Baxter
Baxter:
You couldn’t be more right about slow play! When I read about your slow play experience and the verbal beating the guy at the course took from your wife, I nearly fell off my chair laughing so hard. Your tips and suggestions (we should call them rules) were perfect. We cut them out and posted them on the bulletin board at the course we regularly play, but I wish we could make them required reading for everyone that comes through the clubhouse. If everyone followed those rules, more of us could finish on time and therefore, more of us would play more often. A lot of weekends, I don’t play because I know there is no way to get around in 4 hrs and the time commitment at that point gets to be way too much. I am writing this letter so more people might see your June article and might heed it . . . can you send it in to the Star or maybe sell it to all the golf courses to laminate and put in all their carts? We need to get your word out to those people.
Thanks – Keep it up,
Fast Freddie
Fred:
Thanks for the letter and while I appreciate the comments, I don’t think I said much that the courses don’t already know. I think all too often, the folks who run the courses get a little tired of fighting the pace of play every week and so they slowly give in. What I would like to see is some enforcement of the slow play rules at the professional level. Maybe if they set the example and we saw some penalties rather than idle threats, we would see some trickle-down changes. Whatever the cure, we need to get on it because too many people like you are playing less because it just takes too much time by the time you get to the course, warm-up, play a slow round, and then drive home. We need to get this under control and I hope everyone takes note!
Regards,
Baxter
Well – that’s it for my letters … at least the ones I see fit to print. Granted, I may have picked some of the more complimentary, but I wanted to keep it light this go-round. Good luck to you all and please email me any time!
—Baxter Stewart
U.S. Not-So Open
Roy McAvoy, the driving range pro played by Kevin Costner in the movie Tin Cup called the U.S. Open the “most democratic tournament in the world . . . Anybody with a four handicap or better’s got a shot at it.” Well, I happen to agree with old Roy, but I never really took much liking to the tournament. Until this year. This year was fantastic.
I usually have a hard time watching the U.S. Open. The course is always set up too hard. The pros rake the ball around the course scrambling to make par and rarely making birdie. So what you end up with is a tournament with nothing but misery and the winner is more of a survivor than a winner. He is the guy who hit fewer shots that got penalized by shaven banks or slick, hard greens or thick rough. Sure – I like a test and I think all the pros and highly skilled amateurs in the field should be able to deal with it. But let’s face it – it’s just not fun watching bogeys pile up. If it was, I would head out to Sycamore Ridge and watch the locals play the back nine. I tune in to watch some excitement and see some drama. What is exciting and dramatic about a guy chipping for par and hoping for bogey?
Well, finally the USGA got it right. We ended up with a score not too far removed from the Opens of years past. As the only two golfers to break par for the week, Rocco Mediate and Tiger Woods went on to play it off on Monday. But they both got there in different fashion. Rocco plodded along and mixed in a birdie here and a bogey there as he reeled off par after par. With forty-six pars, he had only one “other” (not a birdie, par, or bogey) and that was a single double-bogey. Tiger, on the other hand, had seven others: three eagles and four double-bogeys.
Throughout it all, we had some great golf to watch. Thursday and Friday were kind of fun, including Tiger’s unbelievable 30 to get within a stroke of the lead. Then, the drama just got better as Tiger kept stalking the leaders until the very last hole when he scored an eagle to go ahead. Just when we started to think he would get up Sunday and roll on to a multiple stroke victory, he hacks it around in the kikuyu and throws up a double on the first hole.
But who could forget the finish? In typical Tiger fashion, he did it to Rocco on the last hole – rolled in a birdie putt to pull into a tie and force the Monday playoff. Well, old Baxter had to go to work so the golf got put on the TiVo. Do you know how hard it is to avoid the sports radio, ESPN, and even the well-meaning friends who call up and start in on what just happened? I do, because I did it. Then I unplugged the phone and watched the greatest roller-coaster-of-a-sporting-event I had ever seen. Probably the best sports I had seen on a Monday night since Joe Montana retired. Poor Rocco – first he was down, then he was up, then he was varying degrees of down all day before forging ahead near the end only to have Tiger do it again: birdie the eighteenth. So the playoff required a sudden death playoff and that’s where it ended. Lets hope they both recover.
How “fair” was the course? Consider the final round. There were a bunch of rounds in the sixties, including a 65 by Heath Slocum. But there were also a bunch of rounds that got pretty high. Woody Austin, on the other hand, scraped out a seventy-nine. That seems fair. Play well and shoot a low score. Don’t, and get a really high score. Some holes were accessible and almost easy, which probably added a lot of pressure, while others were just tough survival holes. How cool was it that the first was one of the toughest and the eighteenth was one of the easiest?
But is it Democratic? Unfortunately, for Mr. McAvoy, things have changed since he made his movie. Somewhere in there, the USGA decided too many people were showing up at the qualifiers around the country. So they lowered the handicap limit to anyone with a 1.4 handicap or lower. What once was democratic is now all of a sudden feeling elitist. What were they worried about? That more people would get interested in the process and practice hard to try their hand at qualifying? I know that a 4-handicap has no chance of winning and probably little chance of even making it into the field. But I also know he isn’t going to hold anything up, either. He can play along with the true contenders and, who knows? Maybe today’s 4-handicap might become encouraged by the experience, learn what he needs to do to get better and come back as a better competitor each year before he finally does get to where he just might make it. What is so wrong with that?
Guess what? It’s not just the U.S. Open that has gotten tougher to get into. The Public Links has gotten tougher too. What used to be an 8.4 handicap maximum, suddenly turned into a 4.4 maximum this year. I have a nephew who played to an 11 a couple of years ago and had a long-term goal of getting to play in a U.S. Open qualifier – just play in it and give it a shot with a start there. As an interim goal, though was to get to an 8 and try out for the Amateur Public Links. Well, he got to a 7.8 handicap by the end of last year and was fired up to send in his application, but then the maximum changed and he was shut out.
We sent off a letter to the USGA asking about the changing limits. We told them that in a time when the number of rounds played nationally is dropping and courses are having a harder and harder time of it, wouldn’t it be best to encourage as many people as possible to play and compete at all levels? Why shut anyone out at any level as long as they are fairly competitive and can play well enough to keep up? All we got back was a three-sentence reply about how very few folks above a 4.4 enter the tournament anyway and that the limit was changed to maintain a high level of competition.
So now my nephew has to re-calibrate his goals and try to get to 4.4 before he can play in a USGA event. But that seems like a long way to go for someone who was an 11 just a year ago. I guess his other option is to hold it together for 30 years and try to get in the Sr. Amateur – their limit is 7.4. Although, I imagine that is subject to change too.
—Baxter Stewart
Pace of Play
Slow Down! I am always yelling that at the neighbor kid as she comes tearing down our street, but I swear to you on one thing: you will never hear me utter those words on a golf course. Even if another kid is driving a cart too fast or the putt I just hit is zipping past the hole. This slow-play thing has me so upset I won’t utter those words even if they are warranted for fear someone might hear me and think I was talking to them!
On a recent weekend, a couple buddies and I took more than five hours to get around 18 holes. My wife kept calling to see if something had happened. Since I don’t take a cell phone onto the course (don’t get me started on that topic!) she was calling the clubhouse. When they told her I was likely still out on the course because of the pace of play, she gave them an earful! A couple of her main points were spacing of tee times and use of marshals. See, she used to work in the golf industry and knows a thing or two about keeping all golfers happy, even if it means getting after the slowpokes every now and then.
Every course needs to figure out its own pace of play and tee time spacing. If you try to cram folks in too tight, you run into trouble. Some courses play faster than others. If you want to cram groups together in anything shorter than 10 minutes, you better have a nice, open layout and thin, short rough. Otherwise, you’ll have too many ball searchers and people re-hitting on each hole.
Secondly, you gotta keep folks moving and that’s where the marshals come in. Marshals need to do a bit more than drive around and wave a little. They need to monitor play, look for open holes and then watch the groups that seem to have everyone playing behind them, but no one playing in front. If the group is truly playing slowly, then let them know they need to move on. Some folks new to the game watch the jerks on TV (some call them pros) and see how they dance around every putt, eyeballing and then plumb-bobbing, and then checking it from behind the hole, and then the side, then one more plumb-bob, then 18 practice swings before backing away for one more look before settling in for another three practice swings and then finally, mercifully, hitting the ball. No offense to Mr. Furyk, but come on already and putt the ball! So – we have these well-meaning, newly outfitted golfers on the course and they think that’s how to play a weekend round of golf. I bet all it would take is a one-minute conversation with a marshal to get them out of that behavior. Just say, “Sir, take a look at Mr. Stewart over there on that next green. Watch how he gives it a look while his partner is putting, then as soon as the ball drops or is marked, he is up and over the ball ready to go.”
So – I think that’s the gist of what my wife told the dude at the counter who had the misfortune of answering her phone call about 4 hours and 45 minutes into my round. If she could have gotten all the golfers together for a quick chat, I bet she would have had some words for them too. Something like:
1. Hit the ball when you’re ready. If your buddy just chipped on the green and you are inside him, go ahead and putt while he walks around to his ball with his putter.
2. Get ready already. There is a story about some kid in Q-School and he was really blowing it. As the bogeys and missed birdies piled up, he and his group kept slowing down. Finally, the marshals put them on the clock and told them to hurry up or they would be assessed a penalty. All of a sudden, the kid didn’t have time to get anxious over each shot. He played naturally and ran off a string of birdies to save his round. Take a lesson from that kid and make the right decision, get the right club, get over it and hit it. Leave the rest of the primping and priming for the prima donnas on tour.
3. You get five minutes to find your ball – and that is it! You don’t get 10 minutes to see what other balls you can find too, and I don’t care how bad a lost ball will wreck your score – it’s in the rules: five minutes MAXIMUM and then it’s lost! I’d like to add an extra limitation . . . it should be five people-minutes, meaning one person golfing alone and searching alone gets five minutes, but a foursome only gets 1 minute and 15 seconds. How do you like that?
4. Watch your ball all the way to where it comes to rest. I know you just might be the next coming of Tiger, but he has a few million eyes watching his ball. Stop turning away in feigned disgust to throw a club or curse the heavens and watch the thing and make a mental mark on its whereabouts. I don’t know how many people I see duff one off the tee box about 40 yards into the rough before the start of the fairway and then spend forever looking for it, but it makes me mad.
5. Write down your score when you get to the next tee box. Don’t stand on the green and look back trying to count your strokes. When you hole out, put the flag back and get off the green, in your cart and out of the way.
6. Play the right tees. Get a realistic view of your distance off the tee and play to it. If you don’t know what you can handle, tell the starter how far you hit your driver and ask where to go. You’ll enjoy your round a lot more and so will the folks on the course with you.
7. Drop off your cart passenger. Take him to his ball, let him get a club and then drive to your ball. He should hit while you make your way to your ball and then start walking forward. Then you are ready to hit and you pick him up – see how easy and quick this game can be?
8. Take enough clubs. If you are chipping, take your putter with you. If it’s a cart-path-only day, take a couple of other clubs with you (one or two stronger and one or two lighter than you think you need). Then, you’re ready to go whether it’s time to putt or the distance to the green is a little different than what you thought from the cart.
If none of that works, look for me out there and I guarantee you’ll get a lesson in playing at a normal speed that is enjoyable and doesn’t impact your ability to have a good round. And then you better take heed, because if I get stuck in another five-hour round, I think Mrs. Stewart just might come out to the course this time to see what and who is the matter – and you really don’t want to be around for that. Thanks folks – hope that helps! Good for golf.
—Baxter Stewart
Tiger vs. Golf
Tiger is good for golf. One needs to look no further than at the massive increase in prize money since he has been a pro. In 1996, Tiger turned pro near the end of the year and the top of the money list earned $1,944,034. Last year, that number was matched by Retief Goosen, who finished 51st on the money list. Where is all this money coming from and why do purses keep rising? Clearly, tournament sponsors are willing to pony up the cash for TV and other reasons, because there is so much interest in the sport, especially when Tiger is in contention.
When he first came on the scene and took the world by storm at the 1997 Masters, the whirlwind of excitement that followed swept up the nation, and everyone – especially kids – was suddenly interested in golf. Since then, Tiger has been one of the top ambassadors of the sport.
And what an ambassador he is. From a uniquely mixed ancestry, he embodies the melting pot of America by being African-American, Chinese, Thai, Native American and Dutch all at the same time. And not only does he represent a great cross-section of America, but he is a very intelligent professional who is a student of the game and its history. During the PGA Championship last year, a reporter asked Tiger if he thought it was very unique that all the 2007 major winners up until that time (Johnson in the Masters, Cabrera in the U.S. Open and Harrington in the British Open) were all first-time major winners. Without missing a beat, he replied that it wasn’t strange at all and then quickly named the year and the winners when it last happened. I doubt that reporter could quickly recant those details – and I seriously doubt many on Tour could do the same.
Besides an ambassador of the sport, he is an excellent role model (outside of a few choice words that the ever-present microphones pick up). Few people work harder at the sport or at their endeavors outside the sport. Before he endorses anyone or anything, he performs intense research to ensure it’s an entity he is comfortable with. He is married with a child and, by all accounts, is an excellent family man. He is very close with his mother and had a very strong relationship with his father. All sports should have as good a citizen as Mr. Woods as their foremost performer.
Which brings us back to the question at hand: Is Tiger good for golf? There can be no doubt. He is arguably the greatest golfer of all time. And when he passes – if he passes – Jack Nicklaus with the most career major wins, there will be no argument. To be able to witness something like this is a treat. Every golfing fan owes it to themselves to go see him in person. Do whatever you have to do, but you need to see him play when he is at his peak, and I think he is there now.
Besides, if Tiger’s dominance is so boring, why do so many people tune in to see him? Why do the media cover him so much? Because he is what people want to see. And if he brings attention and viewers to the game of golf then, yes, he is good for golf. If he is an excellent ambassador of the sport and a great role model, then yes, he is good for golf.
—Baxter Stewart
I disagree with anyone who tells me that golf needs Tiger and that golf would be struggling, right alongside tennis, without Tiger. When he first came on the scene years ago, he did bring a lot of attention and a lot of new interest in golf, but that interest quickly faded. And in the wake of that faded interest, we are dealing with country clubs that are closing their doors, declining participation all over the country and declining television audiences for a number of great events.
When he doesn’t show up (and unless it’s a major, a world championship or an event thrown by him or his sponsors, he won’t show up), no one watches. The fixation on Tiger is so great that no one is interested in anyone else. Ask the organizers of the International . . . the great, unique tournament that gave up when Tiger quit showing up. Ask the folks who run the Texas Open or any of the other formerly great, historic tournaments that now struggle because no one tunes in if Tiger isn’t there. Despite what some people might think, those tournaments are still great television. Golf fans would still enjoy watching the drama as it unfolded if not for their mistaken opinion that without Tiger, why watch?
I think without Tiger’s overriding popularity, those golf fans would watch. They would latch on to Mickelson or Stricker or Els or someone else, similarly to how folks latch on to their favorite NASCAR driver (which is not to say I, in any way, compare golf to NASCAR other than it’s not a team sport in the traditional sense). In so doing, they would watch each week to see how their guy is doing.
People want to see competition, and the professional game would be stronger week in and week out, through the whole season, than it is now. Strong competition and a slew of various winners would ensure everyone would have something or someone to cheer for. Just look at pro football, which has the most parity of all sports and perhaps the biggest and strongest fan base. Ticket prices are ridiculous, and every weekend before and during the season, the NFL receives incredible attention. Television ratings are through the roof and more people play fantasy football than we would ever imagine. And why? Because of parity. Even in the age of the Patriot “dynasty,” on any given Sunday people know anything can, and usually does, happen.
The other reason I think Tiger is bad for golf: The over-exposure he gets detracts from the true champions when others win. When Trevor Immelman turned in a stunning performance to win the Masters, over half the coverage was about Tiger NOT winning. What a disservice to golf and to Trevor.
Yes, without Tiger, golf would be stronger because the competition would be tougher and more interesting every week. People would love the sport that I love and understand that strong competition is good competition . . . they would tune in to watch it and we would see renewed interest and participation at all levels.
—Wesley Raguet
Drug Testing
So, I’ve been following this drug-testing thing they are talking about for pro golfers and wanted to offer my two cents. This testing doesn’t kick in until July, so maybe I’ll change my mind by then, but I think I go along with one of the talking heads on TV who said it seems like all you really need to test is one guy – does it really matter what the rest of them are doing?
Speaking of Tiger, he has come out in support of testing. I don’t think I can blame him – he has put in the work and slowly turned into what I would actually call an athlete. Now, as everyone plays catch-up, it only makes sense that he wouldn’t want anyone to cut any corners to get there faster.
A quick look around the rest of the Tour doesn’t reveal many bulging biceps or ’roided-out, ripped-up physiques. Heck, let’s look at the major winners last year. Zach Johnson won the Masters on the longest Augusta setup ever, and he’s a pretty short knocker and all-around good kid from Iowa. Zach is in no way “built.” I think he goes 5’10” and maybe 165. In other words, anywhere but the golf course, I think I could take him (mind you, I mean back when I was in my prime). Unless of course, he happens to know judo or something, and then it might be an even fight.
After that, the U.S. Open was won by a dude nicknamed The Duck. I’m not kidding – and he really looks like some sort of overgrown, barnyard-fattened duck. Angel Cabrera chain-smoked his way around the course and has a big, naturally broad-shouldered build that explains his length off the tee. Nope – no drugs there either, unless nicotine counts. Then, the British Open was won by Padraig Harrington. I’ll admit—Paddy is pretty fit for 36 years old. But he is mostly the lean kind of fit than the muscled kind. At about 6’1” and 195 pounds, he probably has some tough, bare-knuckle, Irish pub brawls in his past, so I won’t be getting into any donnybrooks any time soon with that fellah…but I still don’t think he is on any juice. The final major, the PGA, was won by Tiger, so again, if we don’t test him, why bother?
A quick look around the rest of the tour reveals such beauties as Tim “Lumpy” Herron, Charlie “Swizzle Stick” Howell III, and just about every size in between. There is even some fancy-pants dude the chicks all like named Camillo Villegas (don’t ask me how to pronounce that, please). But outside of some rare near misses and a ridiculous way of reading putts, why would we care what he is doing when he isn’t modeling? Even old Mr. Number 2, aka Lefty, isn’t much to look at. Sure, he thinned out a bit last year, but let’s face it – he has pretty much needed a bra for the last five to 10 years.
So no one in their right mind would think of testing this crew for steroids and other muscle-builders, so what are they testing for, anyway? I heard at a tournament early in the year, they pulled all the players into meetings to talk about the supplements they take. Anyone who has been at a tournament lately knows they all are chewing on some energy bar or mixing some electrolyte and hydrating stuff into their water between shots, so it stands to reason that they would want to check out what that stuff is. Maybe it’s all good stuff on the up-and-up, but maybe some of it would set off a positive result like some dudes claim cough medicines do. If that happens and we get one of those long, drawn out controversies like what happened with the winner of that Frenchie bicycle race last year, then how bad and distracting would that be?
I just read that the full list of illegal items is in 10 categories and isn’t available to the public as I type this up. So that means for now, we have to guess what beta-blockers and other calming drugs will be on the list. I know some of the guys I play with keep up a nice steady flow of beer through their round to stay calm and take the edge off. So is that illegal? If so, John Daly is screwed – unless he has a late afternoon tee time and everything from the night before has worked its way through. And what about nicotine? If that is out, then Daly is really screwed, along with The Duck and a bunch of other smokers. (Hogan smoked like crazy when he was on the course, by the way.)
My final take then is this: Golf is a grand sport that requires power one moment and remarkable touch the next. Because of this, I am not sure many drugs would help anyone perform in this sport. You cannot take one thing to calm you down over a delicate short-sided chip and then expect to be able to rip a 300-plus-yard drive in a few minutes. And vice versa – get all juiced up for a long drive and see what happens to your touch around the greens.
The tradition of the sport is also at odds with drugs and the need to drug test. This has long been a sport where you call your own fouls, and for that, it’s a beautiful, noble sport. I don’t even like it when TV viewers call in about broken rules they think they see on the tube; so I really don’t like Big Brother Finchem getting into the blood vessels of the top players. Give them guidelines and ask them to sign off on their compliance if you must, then let the legal system manage the rest. If a player accepts a shipment of HGH or turns up in the files of someone like BALCO, then ban them for life or something. Leave the “tests of golf” to the people who set up the U.S. Open courses (which, by the way, I have some opinions about too!).
—Baxter Stewart
Email Baxter and we’ll print some of your responses and opinions.
baxter@kcgolfermagazine.com |
|
