On Protecting the Game
For several years, professional golf has assured fans that extraordinary measures were necessary to protect the game.
The Association remains uncertain what the game was being protected from.
Throughout the dispute, participants were encouraged to adopt strong opinions regarding loyalty, tradition, integrity, competitive structure, global expansion, and the future of professional golf. Meanwhile, contracts grew larger, investment pools expanded, and executives held increasingly urgent discussions about matters that appeared to involve substantial amounts of money.
What were they trying to protect it from?
- Competition?
- Player movement?
- New investors?
- Higher purses?
- Team names nobody understands?
- Television ratings?
- Other golfers?
- PGA couldn't protect it.
- LIV couldn't fix it.
- Players took the money.
- Executives issued statements.
- Fans picked sides.
- Golf remained golf.
The Sacred Guardians of Fairness
Golf's handicap system relies heavily on trust, mathematics, and periodic intervention by concerned citizens. The resulting process has produced decades of debate, occasional controversy, and an impressive number of conversations beginning with the phrase, "Something doesn't add up."
In this commentary, veteran columnist Eddie Edwards turns his attention to golf's handicap committees—the selfless volunteers tasked with determining where legitimate improvement ends and suspicious competence begins.
Scared Guardians of Fairness >
The views expressed are those of Mr. Edwards and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Grand Sham Tournament Players Association. The Association neither endorses nor disputes the findings presented herein and reminds readers that statistical irregularities are not, by themselves, evidence of wrongdoing.
The Case For Bogey
For generations, golfers have accepted a scoring standard achievable by only a small percentage of those who play the game. The extent to which this benchmark accurately reflects the experience of the average golfer remains a matter of ongoing discussion.
In this commentary, Michael Keane revisits golf's decision to replace bogey with par and considers whether a century-old administrative error may finally be ready for correction.
The views expressed are those of Mr. Keane and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Grand Sham Tournament Players Association. The Association neither endorses nor disputes the findings presented herein and reminds readers that statistical irregularities are not, by themselves, evidence of wrongdoing.
The Sham Revelation
