Give D.A. points for class

    The Morning Nine for Monday, February 10, 2014

    The thermometer reads zero as this is typed. Does that mean Mother Nature is at even par? While we chill out on that question, here’s the Morning Nine.

    1. Pekin native D.A. Points may not know every rule in the book, but he knows how to act. Disqualified on Friday for using a training aid while practicing his swing during one of the many lulls in the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, he came back anyway on Saturday for the benefit of his pro-am partner, former Secretary of State (and Augusta National member) Condoleezza Rice.
    “She’s such a sweet, warmhearted woman and loves golf,” Points, who won at Pebble Beach three years ago, told the San Jose Mercury News. “I signed up to play the Pebble Beach AT&T Pro-Am. It’s not just about me and the golf tournament. It’s about playing with our amateurs and making sure they have a good time.”
    There is the definition of class. And Rice responded in kind.
    “It meant an enormous amount to me,” Rice told the paper. “He didn’t have to do that. I, more than anybody, know what it’s like to be on the road a lot and perhaps get to go home early. But he’s a wonderful, wonderful person, and it really speaks well for him and the Tour that he came out and played anyway.”
    The duo finished 147th, near the bottom of the 156-team field, and didn’t make the cut for Sunday.

    2. So what did Points do? While waiting on the 18th tee at Pebble Beach, he grabbed a green foam ball out of his bag and tucked it under his right arm while making a practice swing. Since the ball was a training aid, that was illegal under the rules, and once the Tour officials found out via a video, he was disqualified.
    Points didn’t know the rule, which isn’t unusual for a pro, especially for something this obscure.
    Here’s something odder: Had Points just grabbed a head cover and done the same thing, there would be no penalty, since a head cover isn’t a training aid.
    Does that make sense? Of course not. The rule should be “You can’t use anything during a round.”
    And, curiously, Points wasn’t disqualified from the Pro-Am. Were’t the Rules of Golf in effect for that?

    3. Congrats to Point O Woods Golf & Country Club and the WGA for making official what was reported here on January 6, that the Western Amateur is returning to what Chick Evans once called “the peerless Point.” The Western Am returns to the course just outside of Benton Harbor, Michigan, in 2019. It was played there in 1963, 1965, and from 1971 through 2008, when disagreements over financing ended a long run that featured wins by, among others, Tom Weiskopf, Ben Crenshaw, Andy North, Curtis Strange, Phil Mickelson, Justin Leonard and Tiger Woods.
    Expect a big promotional push in 2019. The Point has a new clubhouse and members with a new outlook, but the classic course designed by Robert Trent Jones is still a tremendous test, even for big hitters. They still have to hit the fairways and the proper portion of the greens.
    Said Point president Mark Matthews in a WGA release, “We’ve hosted many great Western Amateur championships. A good number of our champions, and scores of other top amateurs who have competed here, have gone on to enjoy highly successful professional careers. We’ve enjoyed giving back to golf by hosting such a prestigious championship, and we’re thrilled now to be back in the Western Amateur rotation.”

    4. There was a changing of the guard in the USGA over the weekend, Glen Nager leaving the presidency and Tom O’Toole taking over. Or Thomas J. O’Toole Jr., if you want to get formal – and the USGA suffers from formality. But that may change. In his incoming chat, O’Toole spoke of wanting to diversify the game, of the USGA’s failure to do so in the past.
    He even said the recent push for alternative golf – cups the size of hubcaps, non-conforming clubs – is a way to increase the interest in the game.
    Quoth O’Toole, “I think some of these things that would enhance or entice people to play golf by playing a different game, that's perfectly okay with us.”
    But O’Toole also said, “We’re not going to call that golf.”
    He’d better call it golf, or someone else will come up with a name for it, and those who play it will pay attention to that someone else and not the USGA. And the boys in the blue coats will be on the outside looking in. Golf is golf, in all its forms, formal and informal, and the sooner O’Toole embraces that, the sooner the game stops its downward slide in participation and begins to grow.
    Or does he not recall how someone picked up a soccer ball one day and ran with it, thus inventing rugby?

    5. Nager? He defended his wild last few months, in which he tried to overhaul the USGA’s governing structure and install himself as the overseer of the staff and the executive committee, to which the executive committee said, “You’re out of bounds.” Nager, a Washington lawyer, accepted a thank you gift from O’Toole and left the annual shindig without hanging around for dinner.
    Meanwhile, Gary Stevenson, the one-term member of the executive committee who, with Nager, helped push through the Fox Sports television contract, has also left the building, having his duties increased at Major League Soccer, his real life job.

    6. The USGA also joined the R&A in its recent declaration that it will allow electronic distance measuring devices in its amateur competitions, invoking the local rule it’s had on the books since 2006. The idea is to speed play.
    How many seconds per stroke it will save compared to searching out a yardage marker, nobody could say. How much natural feel it will take out of the game, nobody could say. The guess here is that a player who can’t judge distance on his or her own will end up taking more time, not less, no matter how much gadgetry is in use.
    But the USGA will call that golf.

    7. Parkas. Hand-warmers. Weather delays. The Winter Olympics? Nah. Crosby weather at the Crosby. All that was missing over the weekend was Phil Harris. But the best save at Pebble Beach wasn’t from a bunker, it was 83-year-old Clint Eastwood’s performing the Heimlich Maneuver to save tournament CEO Steve John from choking on food during a Wednesday night volunteer party. Talk about making a guy’s day.

    8. Hey, Woods finally won a tournament. No, not Tiger Woods.
    His niece, Cheyenne Woods, captured the Ladies European Tour tournament in Queensland, Australia, over the weekend. She birdied two of the last four holes to close with 69 for 16-under-par 276 and beat Aussie amateur Minjee Lee by two strokes. Remember when ol’ Uncle Tiger would win with monotonous regularity? Ah, the days before fire hydrants.

    9. Finally, if you can’t get the Olympics out of your head these days, here’s more good news: Golf Channel confirmed the other day that it will televise the Olympic golf competitions from Rio de Janeiro in 2016. This was a foregone conclusion, since Golf Channel is part of the NBC behemoth, but now we know for sure.
    Of course, it would help if the golf course is ready by then. Architect Gil Hanse says it will be. He thinks. He hopes. Don’t run to Vegas on that.

    – Tim Cronin