Starting in March I officiated at 22 events on 18 different courses around the state. I spent a total of 385 hours on course, not including travel time to and from home. I arrived at the course at 6:45AM on average (5:45AM was the earliest) and averaged leaving the course at 6:10PM. All told I spent 385 hours on various courses. I drove 1975 miles to get to and from the events. The longest round trip was 350 miles (Williamsburg) and the shortest was several events at Columbia, just up the street in Chevy Chase.

By the time the annual meeting is over I will have attended 34 hours of Board and other meetings, spread out over 8 events. I will have driven 540 miles to and from those meetings.

So here’s how all that adds up: 48 days, 419 hours, 2515 miles. Out of pocket costs other than gas: $155. Gas cost (est): $300.

Oh. And I loved every minute.

Now if we can only get the system into the US Open, the US Women’s Open and the US Senior Open I’d be even happier.

The first event was in early June and had to do with the scheduling of the finals of the Maryland Amateur. The weather was atrocious all week and the finals had to be rescheduled from Sunday until Monday. That didn’t become an issue until the second finalist was determined; he was scheduled to play in the second stage of qualifying for the US Open on that same day. After much discussion and soul searching (and no pressure from either officials or the finalist with the issue) the other finalist decided that if the situation were reversed he wouldn’t want to have to choose between attempting to qualify for the national championship and potentially winning the state amateur. So he agreed to postpone the final until Tuesday so his opponent could attempt to qualify.

The second act of sportsmanship happened yesterday. Two friends (of mine and of each other) were playing in the 36 hole final of their club championship. They are both outstanding players; one is a nationally ranked amateur and the other is highly acclaimed in our region. They came to the 34th green all square and both had makeable birdie putts. The first player missed his putt. The second player conceded his next putt and attempted to knock his ball back to him. Instead, the ball went in the hole. The second player then proceeded to make his birdie putt, ostensibly taking a one-up lead going to the 35th hole.

At that point the referee, who is also the head professional at their club, stepped in and erroneously ruled that the second player, by inadvertently knocking his opponent’s ball into the hole, had made a practice putt and therefore had lost the hole. Both players were stunned by the ruling and attempted to make the case that it was not in any way a practice putt. The head pro would have none of it and apparently didn’t try to look up whether he’d ruled correctly or not.

The player who’d lost the hole on the course but won it by incorrect penalty then conceded the 35th hole and they walked to the 36th tee all square. That was about all he could do as he was powerless to change the wacko ruling.

It doesn’t change the value of the sporting acts, but neither outcome could be deemed a fairy tale ending. In the case of the Maryland Amateur the accommodating sportsman lost on the 36th hole of the final. He took the loss very hard, but he’s an outstanding player with many years of fine golf ahead of him. As to the club championship case, it was every bit as outstanding match as the first 33 holes were. The players both made par on hole 36 and birdie on the 37th. The player who conceded the 35th hole then made a birdie on the 38th to take the championship.

There’s one other aspect of the latter situation that I can’t get out of my mind. If it’d been me who’d had that ridiculous ruling on the 34th green I’m not at all sure that I’d have been able to make a swing afterward. Maybe that’s why he’s a fabulous player and I’m not. Good on you, my friend.

When Mr. Emmet retired from the JGW the board created a scholarship fund for participants. Each year the fund holds a fundraising tournament at a local course and most of the clubs, especially the old line ones, send a team to compete.

I’ve been fortunate to play in these outings before but never came close to even a net prize. Until this year, when my friend who’d proposed the story idea suggested that we play together and bring along the golf and green committee chairmen to fill out the foursome. It sounded like a great idea and I looked forward to it.

Then I hurt my shoulder, then reinjured it. Couldn’t even practice – much less play – for 2 months, and even then I could only putt. It gradually started to feel better (thanks, Rick) a couple of weeks ago and I was able to hit balls full speed. The last hurdle was deep, thick rough and I tried that out 10 days ago. No pain, no problem, let’s go.

But I still hadn’t had a chance to play a single hole since before the hurting myself again in February. So yesterday rolled around, it’s the tournament named for the guy I’d researched and written about, and it’s my first round of the year. My expectations were low and I figured that my main contribution would be to be sociable and supportive of my teammates. Now, I can’t say I made the most birdies or hit all the straight drives, but I made a putt here and there and made some timely pars. And we won the event. Not a major, just a fun little competition with good pals and among friendly clubs for a good cause. But a few of us did wonder if there was some cosmic tie between our performance and the article or our hosting Mr. Emmet’s tournament this summer.

10. The Rules permit the use of rangefinders (distance measuring devices) during play.

9. You must inform your opponent in match play or fellow competitor in stroke play before you start a new hole with a different ball.

8. Whatever brand and type of ball you use to begin your round, you must use that same brand and type of ball for the entire round.

7. You cannot play a provisional ball if your ball might be lost in a water hazard, even if it might be lost somewhere outside a water hazard.

6. It is against the Rules to have the flagstick attended for a stroke played from off the putting green.

5. After your next stroke in match play has been conceded, if you putt and miss instead of picking it up the concession is nullified.

4. If you declare your ball lost it is lost even if someone finds it within 5 minutes.

3. If you run out of golf balls (or are about to run out) during a round you may not borrow or buy more balls from another player.

2. When a ball is replaced on the putting green it isn’t back in play until the ball marker is removed.

1. If a person other than the player marks and lifts a player’s ball on the putting green the person who lifted it must replace it. The player is penalized if anyone else replaces the ball.

Reasons etc. in the extended entry…

10. The Rules permit the use of rangefinders (distance measuring devices) during play.

The Rules permit the Committee in charge of a course or competition to adopt a local rule permitting the use of such devices, with restrictions, but Rule 14-3 specifically bars their use unless the Committee has acted. The penalty is disqualification.

9. You must inform your opponent in match play or fellow competitor in stroke play before you start a new hole with a different ball.

Nonsense. It might not be a bad idea to inform the other players in case there’s any question about whether a given ball is yours or not, but there’s no rule that say you have to do so.

8. Whatever brand and type of ball you use to begin your round, you must use that same brand and type of ball for the entire round.

We watch too much golf on TV and think we therefore understand the Rules. The only time this myth is a fact is when the ‘one ball rule’ is in effect. That is generally only a condition during PGA Tour and other events for highly skilled golfers. It is almost never in effect for regular play.

7. You cannot play a provisional ball if your ball might be lost in a water hazard, even if it might be lost somewhere outside a water hazard.

You may always play a provisional ball if you think your original ball is lost outside a water hazard or is out of bounds. Let’s say you play a provisional because think your original ball is lost or may be in a water hazard and subsequently find your ball in the hazard. You must proceed under Rule 26 (Water Hazards) and abandon your provisional.

6. It is against the Rules to have the flagstick attended for a stroke played from off the putting green.

Rule 17-1 says you may have the flagstick attended, removed or held up prior to making a stroke from anywhere on the course. The ball better not hit the flagstick or the attendant, though, or it’ll cost you either loss of hole or two strokes.

5. After your next stroke in match play has been conceded, if you putt and miss instead of picking it up the concession is nullified.

Concessions, whether of stroke, hole or match, are permanent and non-retractable unless made based on information erroneously and purposely either given or withheld. Your play on the hole is over when your next stroke has been conceded, so anything you do after that point has no bearing on the outcome of the hole (assuming you don’t violate any Rules, like deflecting your opponent’s putt.)

4. If you declare your ball lost it is lost even if someone finds it within 5 minutes.

A ball isn’t lost until one of 5 conditions in the definition of lost ball kicks in. Simply declaring the ball lost isn’t one of them.

3. If you run out of golf balls (or are about to run out) during a round you may not borrow or buy more balls from another player.

The source of one’s equipment etc. is not a concern of the rule making bodies. What you can’t do is unduly delay play because you’ve got to run back to the pro shop for another 15 pack of Top Flites. However, if the one ball condition is in effect you might have trouble finding an acceptable ball unless you play a common brand and model.

2. When a ball is replaced on the putting green it isn’t back in play until the ball marker is removed.

Nope, the ball is back in play as soon as it’s replaced. We’ve all seen the tour pros leave the marker in place then fiddle with the orientation of the ball, but that’s acceptable procedure. However, if the ball is blown away from the marker after having been replaced it must be played from its new position. The presence of the marker means nothing once the ball has been replaced.

1. If a person other than the player marks and lifts a player’s ball on the putting green the person who lifted it must replace it. The player is penalized if anyone else replaces the ball.

Under Rule 20-3 the player, his partner or the person who lifted or moved it must replace it. If any person other than those three replaces the ball the player must correct the error or he will be penalized.

C’mon, people. Every player wants every putt to go in. You’re hardly showing your prescience by shouting it every time a pro hits it with a flat stick. And as for the ‘three whistle’? What, you got no roller derby in your town? Really. I’ve enjoyed every visit to San Diego. You can do better.

OTOH, maybe the San Diegans were just trying to set the bar for next year’s Open attendees.

But Ben Brundred Jr., a former Congressional club president and chairman of its U.S. Open committee, said the tour has not contacted the club.

“I think their first step is to talk to a potential sponsor, and if any of those stepped up to the plate, that’s the city where the tournament would go,” Brundred said. “But we haven’t heard word one from anyone, and I guess that’s a little surprising.”

To borrow a well-worn phrase from a former President, I guess that depend on what the meaning of “we” is.

The construction schedule at Avenel (kindly pointed out by Todd in his comments to this post) dictates that the Tour can’t stage an event there until 2009. Period. No discussion. So the most straightforward solution would seem to be to play a Tour event at Congressional in 2007 and in 2008 leading up the Amateur in 2009. That lets the members and the club staff have a year to prepare for the onslaught which will be the US Open in 2011. Which, I shudder to point out, is a mere four years hence.

So will Congressional do it? I’d say its up to the members who, if the past is any indication, will say yes. Because the financial benefits far outweigh the inconvenience.

Sure, the Tour could try to open up a new market on short notice this summer. Kansas City, Philadelphia, Minneapolis and Portland are all fine cities. But with a venue like Congressional waiting, a volunteer organization and tourament staff in place and last year’s messy exit still fresh in the fans’ minds, I’d think those savvy folks in Ponte Vedra are working awfully hard to make this happen.

On the other hand, we’re talking about the weekend after the 4th of July. The weather around here is hot and humid; it is so uncomfortable that the Brits used to pay their embassy staff the same pay as those who were stationed in the tropics. It’s also prime vacation time, which means that the fan base, and the volunteer base, will be smaller. Of course, the best kept secret in Washington is that the there is no traffic in July and it’s the perfect time to go to the theater or that fabulous local restaurant, ’cause neither the tourists nor the Hill folks are in town.

OK, enough with the local knowledge. Who’ve you got in mind for a sponsor?
Doesn’t matter who I’ve got in mind, but there are plenty of good local candidates; my guess is that there’s a reasonably good list of national prospects in the Tour files, too. (If there isn’t, then somebody in Ponte Vedra should be polishing his or her resumé, because the job ain’t been getting done.)

The basic ingredients for a successful tournament are purse, course and date, then the management and volunteer organizations get layered on top. The three basic ingredients are a feedback loop: the Tour has to come up with a good venue and a good commitment for dates so they can attract a sponsor who’ll commit enough money to attract a good field for enough years to keep the sponsor’s (and the sponsor’s customers’) interest.

If the sponsor turns out to be a local company who is in any way connected to the local industry you can be sure the long term spot on the Tour schedule will not be while Congress is in recess. At least, not if those doing the negotiating for the sponsor have a clue about what they’re doing.

Where will they play this thing?
My money’s on Congressional for 2007, since they’ve already been approached and they’ve already agreed to host it, if you believe what you read in the papers. In this case, I do.

Why there and not Avenel?
Avenel is still a fan friendly course that the veteran players almost universally intensely dislike. See this post. Plus, if the Tour has its way the place’ll be ripe with large pieces of earth moving equipment come the middle of summer.

So will Congressional host it after this year?
Most likely not. Congo (as it’s affectionately known around here) is hosting the US Amateur in 2009 and the Open in 2011, and I imagine they’ll want to take 2008 off to make sure the course is ready. In fact, they’ll probably need to take ‘08 off, especially if an ‘08 Tour stop in DC is also in July. July is peak disease month for creeping bent grasses around here, and guess what the Congo has on its tees and fairways?

So is Congressional the only likely spot for a Tour stop other than Avenel?
Pretty much, at least if one makes a couple of assumptions. First, let’s rule out Baltimore. Great courses up there, but when the Booz folded, the talk wasn’t that the Tour would be out of the Baltimore-Washington market for the first time in 20-some years, was it? Second, let’s rule out RTJ. They don’t want a regular Tour stop. They want majors, or near majors, because they see themselves as being in the same league as Congo, Caves Valley etc., not the TPC at Avenel. And they’re right.

Are there other courses that are ‘big’ enough to handle Tour-caliber players? Sure there are: the Norman course at Lansdowne that I wrote about here, for one. But it is not without problems. Putting on a Tour event takes more than a big course; you also need to be able to handle big crowds, and handle the logistics to support both those crowds and the big circus that follows the tour. And one issue at Avenel, that all the course and clubhouse renovation in the world can’t fix, is the crowd logistics. It is just a flat out mess; for example, the nearest fan parking that can be relied on in bad weather is 20 miles away. Another glaring problem is player/caddy/player family/player entourage accommodations, which are not anywhere nearby; these folks don’t usually stay at the Red Roof Inn. These problems are made worse,not better, by moving to Leesburg. And the course in Leesburg isn’t likely to be appreciably better than the new course at Avenel, the protestations of its famous player-architect notwithstanding.

And let’s not forget the bottom line, literally. Avenel is a big moneymaker for the Tour. Not the tournament itself, but the year-round operation. They don’t want to mess that up, so I think they’ll find a way to get a tournament back there, warts and all.

When will Avenel be ready to host a Tour event again?
Frankly, I haven’t been by there since last summer, so I don’t know if the renovation has started or not. Let’s assume it has not, and that they get the course work done over the summer. (That’s not a slam dunk, by the way. Permitting in Montgomery County is never something that can be taken for granted.) They can in theory get the seeding and sodding done in late August and have a good grow-in before December. In my never humble opinion, there is no way it would in be ready for a Tour stop in 2008. 2009, sure, but not after only 6 months. Now, if they were to sod the entire course, and if the event were in July, 2008, they probably could host it in passable fashion. But if that happens, watch for lots of articles harkening back to the opening days of Avenel, when nearly everyone agreed that they held the old Kemper there at least one year too early. And that doesn’t even address the clubhouse and other building issues at Avenel, which are in just as desparate need of renovation to support an upgraded event as the course is.

A couple of other thoughts about the event:

It was so wet on Sunday morning that my phone, hidden inside two layers of waterproof fabric, got drenched and refused to work until Monday evening, after I subjected it to 30 minutes of my bride’s hair dryer.

During tournament week trailers are used for temporary offices for the various volunteer organizers: walking scorers, marshals, the kids who carry the scoring signs, communications, security etc. A few of us spent Sunday morning in the general volunteer trailer waiting out the storm. We dubbed ourselves the “trailer trash” and had a good laugh about how much God apparently hates trailer parks and hoping he didn’t notice a temporary one.

When we arrived on Monday morning we learned that the course had received five inches of rain on Sunday night, in addition to the several inches on Saturday night and Sunday morning. The course was devastated: every bunker was either washed out, filled with water or both. The eleventh green was 90% under water. Large trees lay across more than a few tees. And a “potty farm” next to the 12th fairway had been washed “downstream someplace”, to quote one of the organizers. I was convinced that there was absolutely no way the course could be made ready for play, but the grounds crew at Avenel, along with the Tour staff, accomplished was seemed to be impossible.

The sad part of Monday was that they only needed about 90 minutes of play to finish the tournament; they got 60. The last group was on 17 green when the skies just opened and play was cancelled for the day. Between my rainsuit and umbrella I’d managed to stay relatively dry all week until that moment. In the 2 minutes it took me to get to shelter I got soaked to the skin. Nice.

A standard marshal phrase led to the funniest moment I think I’ve ever had at a tournament. One of our team, Tim, approached the gallery as a group of players got ready to putt. Tim held up his “Quiet Please” sign and asked gallery walking on the nearby cart path to “stand please.” With that, a man who had been kneeling right by the gallery rope stood up. Sir, as much as we like the tour guys, we say “stand please” not “all rise.” That one moment will make me laugh for years.

I gleaned some further intelligence about the future of the PGA Tour in Washington which I’ll share in another post. But I did note that the players who came to DC seemed genuinely sorry to see the event so much in doubt; more than a few of them talked openly about the way the final act was being handled. Personally, I like to think that the event itself didn’t want to end; hence the rain and the two day extension.

I don’t think the Tour wants to leave Washington on a permanent basis but I do think they’re willing to sit out a couple of years to get away from the venue in Potomac. And the choices of where to hold a Tour event are not as wide as you might think.

First of all, rule out last year’s host site, Congressional. The members have made it clear they want majors and near-majors, not a regular tour stop. The course is hosting the US Amateur in 2009 and the Open in 2011, which seems to be just fine with them. You can rule out RTJ, too. They seem to value their reputation as a very exclusive place, and hosting the occasional Presidents Cup seems just fine with them. Caves Valley, northwest of Baltimore? Held a magnificent US Senior Open in 2002 but like RTJ is very private and the members seem to prefer it that way. Bulle Rock, in Havre de Grace? Not only is it already hosting a women’s major but it’s also a bit of a hike from metropolitan Washington. Other than those three spots there doesn’t seem to be any location with the scale, location and facilities needed to host a regular tour event.

Except one. I think the Tour has it’s eye on a place across the river, a new course designed by Greg Norman at Lansdowne. Norman has made no secret that he designed the course for a Tour event. He even promotes it as featuring “Golf’s Toughest Mile”; the closing four holes measure 1,760 yards from the championship tees. Given Norman’s harsh criticism of Avenel it would be a delicious bit of irony if his course did wind up hosting a tournament.

What other bits would lead me to such speculation? Well, there’s the Kemper connection. Kemper Sports managed the development of the Norman course; guess who is the tournament management company for the DC Tour stop? Yes, that same Kemper Sports. And guess who hasn’t been able to line up a title sponsor, or even a consortium, for a fall Tour event? Yep, Kemper.

This year’s event is on tenuous ground, if the preparation at the course is any indication. The skybox at #17 tee, long a fixture, is gone. The Pavillion Club tent, once huge, is now midsized. Perhaps most telling of all, it looks as through there are going to be only a half dozen corporate tents around the 18th green, down remarkably from even 2004. There have been stories in the papers about the difficulties of finding volunteers, and obviously Kemper’s had a tough time selling sponsorships both large and small, too.

[Update: after visiting the course again on June 8 I counted seven tents around 18 green and saw the platform for a small skybox at 17 tee.]

I think the situation is set up just the way the PGA Tour wants: pull out of DC for a couple of years, citing poor fan and corporate support. Evaluate how the (regular season) FedEx Cup tournaments are doing starting next year. As they study attendance, field, TV viewership and sponsorships the Tour will be able to spot the winners and losers in the new schedule. That analysis should make it reasonably simple to figure out where to put a DC event back on the schedule.

And we’ll all know what’s going to happen soon enough: the Tour has said it will announce the 2007 schedule during the week of the Booz Allen Classic. Now wouldn’t that be ironic, if there’s no DC event next year?

Disclaimer: I have had no discussions whatsoever along these lines with anyone associated with the event, the courses, or the PGA Tour. My comments are my own, and are not based on contacts with anybody involved, or even remotely connected, with any entity associated with this topic. You are free to consider them the incoherent ramblings of somebody with too much time on his hands, if you like.