Ever wonder why they drop the giant ball in Times Square to celebrate the New Year?
Fact is, people everywhere make resolutions for the New Year and then they drop the ball. The big one is a simple reminder of what’s in store!
With that in mind, we take a look back on who dropped the ball in 2017.
LPGA Tour: They invented the world’s first four-shot penalty in a major championship. Those bozos cost Lexi Thompson at the ANA Inspiration. Hit here with two shots for the improper mark the day after then hitting her with a two-shot penalty for signing an incorrect scorecard. THE DAY AFTER for goodness sakes. There was precedent. Tiger Woods was given a two-shot the day after his second round at the 2013 Masters but was not penalized for signing an incorrect scorecard. Of course, the folks at Augusta National have a lot more common sense than the LPGA noodle-heads.
Anyway, the USGA had the good sense to get rid of the four-shot nonsense.
PGA Tour: The PGA Tour has net worth of nearly a BILLION DOLLARS. After Hurricane Harvey, the tour announced it was donating the miserly sum of $250,000 to the relief effort. LPGA player Stacy Lewis won the Portland Classic following Harvey and donated her entire $195,000 purse to the relief efforts and her main sponsor, KPMG, matched it. Thus a 115-pound woman totally humbled the Ebenezer Scrooges up in the PGA Tour Palace in Ponte Vedre with checks totaling $390,000.
Tiger Woods: Of course you can count on Eldrick to drop the ball. He sucks all the attention out of his Hero World Challenge, plays decent, then turns around and won’t talk about any event on his 2018 schedule. The Genesis (LA Open) benefits his Tiger Wood Foundation but all he’s saying is that he’ll be there in one form or another. Seriously? At least he’s consistent — just Eldrick being Eldrick.
Ben Crane: One of the dumbest things you’ll ever hear of. At the Boise Open Crane put stickers on his driver and six-iron while working with his TrackMan on the practice tee. He forgot to take the stickers off and brought it to the attention of a rules official. He had already played the 10th and since he was in-between holes, he was hit with two shots for each hole. Later he noticed his six-iron, which he hadn’t used yet, had the same sticker. He took another four-shoter, the maximum penalty allowd under rule 4-2, Playing Characteristics and Foreign Material.
The next morning, he was disqualified for failure to declare that his six-iron was out of play.
The USGA: For its choice of Erin Hills, a non-challenging course in the middle of nowhere. As a result, the U.S. Open went from what is supposed to be the hardest tournament of year to a no-teeth event that saw Brooks Koepka shoot 16-under par.
The Evian Championship: No one trims a major championship down to 54-holes, especially when the Monday weather is really good. But that’s what happened over in France, again, the LPGA was involved — go figure.
Rory McIlroy: Fired a damned good caddie — J.P. Fitzgerald and replaced him with a buddy — Harry Diamond. Note that Rory didn’t win a single event in 2017.
Jason Day: See “Rory McIlroy.”
The Golf Channel: Decided it was too tough to provide any fresh programming during the holiday, before the start of the 2017 tour season.
Parsons Extreme Golf: In a day and age when golf clubs are too expensive, PXG decided to break the sound barrier, or, if you prefer, break the bank.
Lydia Ko: She fired everyone except herself.
Achusnet/Titleist: Gave all the proceeds from its public stock offering back to a bunch of South Korean investors.
Sure there were others, but that should do it for now.
Hopefully there’s less “ball-dropping” in 2018.
For all of us at DogLegNews, we wish you a Happy and Healthy 2018.
May all your golf dreams come true!
8 Comments
beege
great stuff and happy new year. my favorite is the pga tour—250k to houston–o.k. they have some cash and o.k. they own like 42 tpc’s and o.k. they have tv contracts that make me shutter but after all Tom they are a charitable organization designed to give everything to charity ………………….as the late great Dick Enberg would say.OH MY! maybe houston was not a big enough deal for them to get deeply involved…that’s it no big deal just a texas town almost in mexico–all we can say is AMAZING AND OH MY……………………………………….to be continued and because they don;t care, the beat goes on(sonny and cher reference of course)
Tom Edrington
Amen, Amen and Amen!
charliej01
So Tom, how much did you donate to the Hurricane Harvey relief effort?
Tom Edrington
Gave more of my net worth than the tour did, for sure, plus our Sons Of AmVets Squadron got in on it as well……
charliej01
Seeing how the primary goal of every PGA tournament is a charity…I think they did OK by giving even more. How many NFL or MLB games/series have their primary financial goal to give to a local charity…answer is NONE. So of course they make a really big deal about any giving they do. But when charity is an everyday part of life, like it is for the PGA, they don’t need to impress us with one-time gifts….they’ve already done a good job.
Tom Edrington
Isn’t the tour that raises that charity money Charlie, it is typically the local guys like the Thunderbirds out in Arizona, the Salesmanship Club in Dallas, the Copperheads here in the Tampa area (Valspar), so the tour itself isn’t giving anything at all, it simply brings its three-ring circus to town and tells the locals to go knock themselves out with their fundraising efforts….many of the NFL teams were throwing $1 million each into the Houston effort, documented….J.J. Watt raised more than $45 million by himself….the tour has an event there and simply should have stepped up to help in a more generous way, from those I’ve polled on this, more agree that the tour was pretty miserly with its token check.
charliej01
Yes….but the NFL teams throwing in $1M don’t do anything on a game by game basis. While its true the PGA doesn’t give the money directly, it is the catalyst for the giving. I don’t think the locals would be knocking themselves out on fundraising if the PGA weren’t coming to town. The point isn’t who provides the money directly, but who can motivate the masses to participating in the giving. Just like your JJ Watt example….that wasn’t his personal money, he was acting as a catalyst.
Tom Edrington
There’s a difference between Catalyst and Leader…..the PGA Tour hides behind the 501-c-3 shroud that Congress has exposed with the new tax bill….we will have to agree to disagree on my belief that the PGA Tour dropped the ball when it came to making a fair, in-kind contribution to the Harvey effort….like I pointed out, Stacy Lewis forked over $195,000 and her main sponsor matched it….now there’s someone who cares and someone who prefers leadership to being a “catalyst”…