Odds and ends and odd ends : Why the old turks stole the majors, and other pressing concerns - items from the gold world of 1998 include domination by seasoned players such as Mark O'Meara - Brief Article

Golf Digest, Nov, 1998 by Nick Seitz

Hank Haney, Mark O'Meara's coach, notes that O'Meara's statistics this year don't dazzle, even in the tournaments he's won. Except for the only stat that counts: scoring. Same is true of the LPGA's Se Ri Pak, who has a clear shot at both rookie-of-the-year and player-of-the-year decorations.

(c) Word on the PGA Tour is that seasoned players like O'Meara squelched the youth movement and swept the major championships in 1998 because week-to-week courses were set up to favor the powerful Tiger Woods while the majors were set up even more than usual to reward patience as opposed to bravado.

(c) Just when it appeared David Leadbetter's rank as king of the gurus was slipping, along come Pak and Justin Rose to reinforce it. Plus Leadbetter retooled the games of Pearl Sinn and Brandel Chamblee, both of whom finally won this year.

(c) Next big conversation topic in golf equipment after metal drivers and their trampoline effect will be a new U.S. Golf Association testing standard for balls. As nearly as this third-grade technical mind can understand it, the new standard-heavily titled "optimization"-will be based on applying optimum launch angle and spin rate to arrive at maximum distance for each ball, using computer simulating in-stead of a mechanical golfer (say goodbye to Iron Byron). Existing balls may test up to 20 yards longer if the optimization method is adopted, so the fun part will come when the USGA decides where to draw the line. Meanwhile, Callaway, Taylor Made and Nike all plan to roll into the ball market in 1999.

(c) I've always thought Jack Nicklaus, with his rare ability to separate his golf game from his business game, was misleading other players, who weren't as disciplined, into over-extending themselves. But maybe Nicklaus was just misleading himself. And the New York Observer wonders what his accounting firm, the well-regarded Arthur Andersen company, was watching as Golden Bear Golf lost track of its earnings by $22 million.

(c) When was it decided that turning right on red gives you the right of way?

(c) TV still doesn't report the scores of the entire weekend field often enough. How hard is it to scroll them across the bottom of the screen every few minutes?

(c) CBS is beginning to stand for the Cutesy Broadcasting System when it comes to golf. It's hard to find the commentary for all the carefully rehearsed humor.

(c) St. Louis Cardinal slugger Mark McGwire loves golf-yes, he drives it out of sight-but doesn't play during the baseball season for fear of diminishing his swing focus.

(c) Don't most country and western songs sound alike nowadays-overproduced too slickly?

(c) U.S. Open winner Lee Janzen says you aspire to play the bonus year-end tournaments, then when you rate an invitation to the World Cup you find it's scheduled too close to the PGA Grand Slam of Golf, and have to decline.

(c) One of many award-winning lines from the late, great Jim Murray: "If they taught sex the way they teach golf, the race would have died out long ago."

(c) Ever get the feeling you're the only one on the street without a cell phone?

(c) Noted biomechanical teaching pro Gary Wiren calls it the South Florida Syndrome. Corporate types retire early, move south with a 15- or 16-handicap, play every day for two years-and see their handicaps swell to 21 or 22. The lifestyle gets 'em, observes Wiren: riding golf carts, socializing every night, ignoring their physical condition.

(c) Alister Mackenzie designed Royal Melbourne, site of the Presidents Cup and the oldest club in Australia, as well as Cypress Point and (with Bob Jones) Augusta National in America. He was a grand master of the strategic school of thought, championing "pleasurable" tests. Lamenting the overuse of penal water hazards, he once said he did not consider a hole ideal if it could not be played with a putter.

(c) Since we don't know what to think until we see the results of a poll, is Bill Clinton good or bad for golf?

(c) I won't tell any more Viagra jokes on the first tee if you won't tell any more Monica jokes.