June 16 - The USGA's War On Par

The United State Golf Association likes to think its Open Championship is the toughest golf tournament in the world, and as such, they go to great lengths to make sure that just a handful of players complete the tourney with scores in the red. To accomplish its goal, the USGA tricks up its open courses by adding yardage, growing cabbage and drying out the greens. The result is usually a pretty damn tough track. However, these tricks alone are usually not enough to defend a score of par so the USGA now resorts to a little mathematical sleight of hand. Rather then just admitting that par cannot be defended, the USGA simply changes the definition of par by turning its par fives into impossibly long par fours and lowering par from say 72 or 71 to 70. Who do they think they are fooling? By re-numbering the course, the USGA is simply engaging in a war of semantics that is pretty transparent to any true golf fan. Nonetheless, come Monday, the USGA will prevail when the winner comes in at three under and a variety of USGA enablers in the media will concede the course triumphed over the talent. In many instances, this is just not the case. I say this because if a player shoots three under on a par 70 course that is usually played at par 71, he has really shot seven under.

This prospect terrifies the USGA and golf pundits who could not fathom holding an Open that was apparently benign. Last week’s tourney at Congressional puts this argument into specific relief. When the US Open was played there in 1997, it was played as a par 70. Last week, it was played as it usually is as a Par 71. The USGA may have been proud that 1997 winner Ernie Ells was only four under, but they were deluding themselves His 276 was really eight under the figure that usually separates the red from the black at Congressional. The question I have for the USGA is what they will do when people start banging around their par 70 courses. Will they respond by taking out a par five and start saying their courses are par 69? What about turning a short par four into an impossibly long 282 yard par 3. You will never see Hootie and the boys down in Georgia do such things. They are perfectly content with their par 72 track.

The point here is that the USGA does the right thing when it makes its courses challenging. And its courses are challenging regardless of whether the winner is three under on an par 70 or seven under on a par 71. I have no problem with adding some yardage and speeding the greens. My problem lies in the USGA’s myopic focus on defending par and their reliance on "new" math to accomplish their goals. They are fooling no one - other then those in the media who love leads that are punctuated with references to the course. The problem is such leads don’t read as well when the winner comes in at seven under par.

For those of you Yankee fans who wonder why there is such antipathy towards your team, I would advise you to take a look at yesterday’s press conference where the club’s brass announced its plans to build a new stadium. The public hasn’t seen that same amount of arrogance and self-congratulatory back slapping since Hitler and his club compelled the French to surrender in 1940. What a bunch of crap. First of all, this formality took seventy-five minutes to conclude and featured a half dozen speakers. This should have been ten minutes of President Randy Levine, five minutes of Mayor Bloomberg and ten minutes of questions. All in, this thing should have been wrapped in thirty minutes, forty tops. But such a time-line was impossible since it would not have enabled the Yankees to hammer home the theme that this stadium was being financed entirely with private monies. Well, at least for the stadium itself and not the accompanying infrastructure improvements. If you didn’t know any better, you would have thought that those speaking on behalf of the club itself have a particularly hard time saying the word "private" without stuttering. The emphasis on this private financing theme is entirely transparent. By highlighting the financing plan, the Club is overtly claiming a moral superiority over all those teams (everyone but St. Louis) that sought and received public financing. Hell, I applaud the Yankees for building this "cathedral" (their words - not mine), but enough with this high-handedness. Listen, I am sure some other clubs would love to build new stadiums with their own money, but most don’t have that luxury since they are already burdened with significant debt loads. Further, they don’t have enormous corporate sponsors who are ready to make upfront commitments that help soften the blow. The Yankess don’t have this problem since George bought the team in 1973 for a mere $10 million and companies like Verizon and Chase are ready to cough up big sums for advertising rights. You think George would be doing this without public money if he had to finance $300 million in existing debt, didn’t have Verizon’s check in his pocket and wasn’t allowed to deduct some construction costs from his future luxury tax bill? You are a crack smoker if you answered that in the affirmative. This whole pow wow was just nauseating but it was all the stuff us Yankee haters have come to detest. The basic message was: "we have money and that makes us better then you." Yesterday’s flagrant waving of the checkbook is nothing new but that doesn’t make it digestible. Oh, and I almost forgot this comment from Mr. Bloomberg: "to many around the world, the Yankees are America."

It was walkoff city yesterday as a host of games ended with a final climatic swing. It started in the Bronx where Giambolic deposited a Jose Mesa fastball in the upper deck to conclude a 7-5 comeback victory. Last night was just the first time all year the Yanks had come back after trailing after eight and it only happened because an umpire absolutely butchered a call that would have ended the game in the ninth. Its funny how that call didn’t get much attention in today’s New York tabloids. Regardless, this was a huge win for the Yanks who were on the verge of having their meager momentum stopped once again. The second walkoff happened out in Cleveland where Aaron Boone parked one in the 11th against Colorado after the Tribe rallied to tie it in the ninth. Aaron Boone should change his number to 11 and if you don’t get that reference, you should probably stop reading. By the way, after losing last night, the Rockies are just 4-25 away from Coors. The last group to play this bad on the road was the Army of the Confederacy (0-2, with a loss at Antietam and a loss up in Central Pennsylvania). The last game to end on a final swing occurred out in Oakland where Marcus Scuttaro sunk the Mets with a big two-out hit in the ninth off Roberto Hernandez. This was a bad loss for the Mets who are now 0-2 on an important twelve game roadtrip. The Mets have now fallen below .500 and you just get the feeling ths team is sinking fast. Their pitching isn’t bad, but that offense is struggling mightily. Carlos Beltran is just one for his last nineteen and some fans are now grousing that the Mets should have signed Delgado instead. Mets GM Omar Minaya can no longer sit by and wait for Minky to turn it around at first. He needs a run producer there and he needs it by the end of June.

In Boston last night, the Sox got a nice outing from Bronson Arroyo who found some bite on his breaking balls, but any optimism has to be a bit guarded considering the team he shut down was the pitiful Reds. The Sox swept the Reds by a combined score of 23-4 and it could have been worse. I realize the Reds weren’t playing with a full deck last night, but do they have to swing at everything that comes down the pike? And for any of you who think Reds right fielder Willie Mo Pena has any trade value outside of fantasy - think again. HE STINKS! Other then Ryan Freel and perhaps Sean Casey or Aaron Harang, I am not sure I wold take anyone on Cincy’s roster. While the Red Sox were beating up on one NL doormat, the Orioles were doing the same down in Camden where Baltimore swept the Astros right out of town. The birds now draw Colorado for three and that very likely means another sweep and probably a four game lead when we open play next Monday. Can someone explain to me how Blue Jay Ted Lilly can shut down St. Louis and Boston while getting torched by Houston and Oakland? All Lilly did last night was blank the Cards over seven. After watching the Cards get locked up by Lilly, David Wells and Randy Johnson over the last eight days, I am beginning wonder if they have some issue with lefties. Rolen’s return will obviously help in this department since he is clearly an upgrade over Scott Seabol and Abe Nunez.

In Detroit, the Cats ended Adam Eaton’s eight game winning streak as Mike Maroth pitched eight strong innings. So much for the theory that Los Madres can hit when they are not behind the counter at the Pet Store. The pads have now lost eight of ten and ten of thirteen. They should be putting away that division but instead are doing everything to allow Arizona and Los Angles stick around. With that said, I am not too sure L.A. has much staying power since it now looks like Eric Gagne is through for the season. The Dodgers have survived thus far without his services but his trip to the shelf is a big blow. Things have gotten a bit ugly for the Ddogers who lost their second straight in KC last night. To add insult to injury, former Dodger Jose Lima picked up the win for the Royales. Hee Sop went homerless for a Dodger offense that was only able to scratch out a single run off the lima bean. The Royales are now just a win away from sweeping both the Dodgers and Yankees this month. I call that a Bi-Coastal bitch slap. After losing last night in Tampa, Brewer hurler Victor Santos is 2-6 with an ERA of 2.87. If he pitched in St. Louis, he would be 6-2 and get an occasional mention on Baseball Tonight.

The White Sox staff continued to get roughed up last night but the offense came through with ten in the sixth and Jon Garland was able to secure his eleventh victory. Paul Konerko, much like Manny Ramirez, is starting to come alive for the palehose. I forgot to mention yesterday that Carl Everett has now stated for the record that he doesn't like homosexuals and is opposed to gay marriage. That is a real shocker, especially when one considers that Mr. Progressive doesn’t believe dinosaurs existed and is suspicious that Americans have ever walked on the moon. Would somebody please ask Carl how he feels about parents that beat their children. Tony Clark’s mystical season for Arizona continued last night with a three run bomb that gives him 11 in just 125 at bats. Manager Bob Melvin gets points in my book for resisting the urge to play Clark more. Clark is not an everyday player regardless of what the stats may suggest. There were no fireworks in Anaheim last night after the Nats and Angels squared off on Tuesday. Newcomer Ryan Drese blanked the Halos over eight and Chad Cordero came in to pick up the save. Bart Colon took the hard luck loss for Anaheim which couldn’t do a thing with Drese’s sinker. Interestingly, Frank Robinson did not come out and meet Angel manager Mike Sciosca before the game to exchange scorecards. I guess Frank really is pissed off over what happened on Tuesday night. Either that or he had already fallen asleep.