"This ain't a funeral, you know."

Anyone who’s witnessed Tour players discharging their obligatory pro-am duties with disdain, contempt for their hapless playing partners etched on their mugs, knows how rare Watson’s empathy is.  It’s almost as unlikely as a 59 year old golfer competing in a four-hole playoff for supremacy at the 138^th Open Championship.

Thirty-two years after having won his legendary final round “duel in the sun” with Jack Nicklaus in 1977 and lifting the Claret Jug, along the way breaking the Open scoring record by eight shots with a four-round total of 268, Watson was tied with Stewart Cink after four rounds at 278, on an Ailsa course lengthened and stiffened with the hope that it would withstand the power of the fit and athletic new generation of touring pros.  Watson survived the test with an astonishing display of ball-striking until the 18th on Sunday, when he hit two of the best shots on a final hole in Open history, only to have the rub of the green chase his perfectly struck 8-iron all the way across the green and into the rough.  A chip too far, and a difficult finishing putt led to a bogey… and the deflating playoff.  (“I made a lousy putt,” he said of 18, as always spurning any excuses.)

The ghost of majors past departed Watson’s body on his trek to the fifth tee to start the playoff.  “I don’t think Tom was tired,” Nicklaus said in sympathy after his friend’s disappointing finish. “But emotionally, he was spent.”   Still, the man left standing when the spirit of past glory departed handled his disappointment with the grace and modesty of a classic hero. “This ain’t a funeral, you know,” he observed,surveying the gloomy faces in the Open press center at Turnberry—the old admonition against cheering in the press box had been discarded as Watson advanced toward his improbable and ultimately elusive victory.

The swing that carried Watson to the edge of triumph at Turnberry closely resembled the one that won for him there in ’77.  Now he and Seitz have summarized Watson’s insights into his swing, and the golf swing in general, in a brilliantly conceived and executed new book, The Timeless Swing.  Not only does it explain the fundamentals—grip, setup, alignment and so on—it has a high-tech feature that allows Watson to elaborate on his explanations with short videos.  I thought the videos were a great addition.

The Timeless Swing uses a technology from Microsoft called TAG to take readers to the video add-ons.

A "TAG" code--Tom Watson may be Old School, but his instructional book is avant-guarde

You go to a website for a free mobile app, then aim your smart phone at these little icons scattered throughout the book that look like barcodes on acid, and that starts the download of a YouTube video.

Golf instructional books typically distribute their advice over two broad categories: the basics, which every beginning needs and accomplished players must never forget; and the advanced skills required to actually play the game, advice which covers scoring tips, how to “read” a course, how to make sensible choices, like taking your punishment when you’ve hit a bad shot and not compound your troubles by assaying an heroic recovery which would require you to execute the best shot you’ve ever hit.

How does a 12 handicap (full disclosure: index 12.8 at Ghost Creek at Pumpkin Ridge in Portland, my “home course”) critique a book about playing golf by one of the greatest players ever to push a tee in the ground?    I read the book first—slowly, because you need to let the expertise percolate into your consciousness—and then tried to make some adjustments in my mediocre swing on the practice range with Watson’s advice in mind before testing in on the course.

My version of the timeless swing may not endure through eternity, but for one bright shining afternoon, it worked great—mostly, I think, because the explanations in The Timeless Swing are extremely clear.  The writing is pure crystal, while the videos provide all of the illustration about what you should be doing that the imagination may not muster.    I worked on setting up with proper balance and spine angle, holding the club in the correct grip with appropriate pressure, and swinging in rhythm.   I didn’t spend a lot of time grinding to try to put these modifications in place—I just hit enough balls to feel as if I had made an adjustment I felt comfortable with, then off to the first tee at Heron Lakes’ Great Blue Course, a Portland muni designed by Robert Trent Jones II that is among America’s very best publicly-owned golf courses.

Much to my amazement, I played very well.  Sure, I hit some loose shots—I am a double-digit handicap, remember?—but I also hit some shots I will dream about.   I always promised that I would never write about playing golf, because I know it’s as boring to read about someone’s round as it is to listen to a blow-by-blow, but I am making an exception here because it illustrates the larger point of what I am discussing: how reading Tom Watson’s brilliant analysis of the golf swing, and watching videos showing how he puts his views into practice can help any golfer improve.

On the tenth hole at the Great Blue, I pulled my drive a bit and it landed in a fairway bunker  about 160 yards from the green.  There’s a mound in front of the bunker, so the shot was blind.  Greenside bunkers to the left eliminated a direct route to the pin.   I aimed to the open front of the green, imagined a slight draw, set up with a strong image of swinging easily so the arc of my swing would hit the ball slightly before the clubhead reached its nadir.   As the ball came off the club, I felt instantly contented.  A couple of quick steps to my left to see the line of flight and there it was, the ball taking exactly the trajectory I had imagined and running up onto the green, about 40 feet short of the hole.   I missed the putt but had a tap-in par.

Is this just a variation of the new putter placebo effect?  You know, when you buy a new putter and make everything you see for a round or two, before the default deficiencies in your swing re-assert themselves?  Certainly possible.

I prefer to believe, however, that it’s because Tom Watson knows what he’s talking about, and with the help of Nick Seitz is able to explain what he knows in simple, accessible, visually memorable detail.   (The book also has great photos by Dom Furore.)

I have never been a fan of instructional books of any kind.  (I’m not big on following directions generally.)  But The Timeless Swing is a gigantic exception to my skepticism about the whole notion of learning a physical skill by reading about it.   I think anyone who plays golf will benefit in some measure, big or small, from studying and digesting the wisdom of a great master, a true golfing sensei, Tom Watson.  Before you think about buying new clubs or investing in a new putter, stop by the bookstore first and do yourself a favor: buy a copy of The Timeless Swing.

If you want to get better, buy this book!

Tom Watson, with Nick Seitz, The Timeless Swing.  Atria Books, $29.99.    You can also buy the book from Watson’s website, which also offers additional free video playing tips.    http://www.tomwatson.com/

Happiest Man's Bag: Orderly and Composed.

My brother-in-law, Lee, the Happiest Man in America, is self-described as “mildly OCD.”   Although he’s not as obsessed about it now as he used to be, he’s never liked to accept conceded putts.  He likes to follow the rules, and in golf that means holing out.  Except in a match, of course, where putts can be conceded.  But Lee’s take is that if you intend to post the score, which he always likes to do, you should hole out to make sure your handicap is legit.

So I used to knock short putts away in a gesture of concession, especially if he was leading in our match.  We always play a three dollar Nassau, and I would enjoy watching Lee retrieve his ball, putting it back down on the green more or less where it had ended up and then making the putt.  But over the last few years he’s gotten into the spirit of conceding putts, although once in a while he still will pick up the ball and backtrack to putt out.

The other day we were finishing a round at a local muni in Portland (where Lee shot 79, his first round ever under 80—he was doing an awesome Fred Funk impression off the tee and his worst drive barely missed the fairway), when Lee raised an interesting philosophical question.  “What do you think should happen,” he asked, “if an OCD guy who likes his clubs organized in a particular way gets a caddie who has his own style with the bag?”

“Would I know this guy?”

“It came up in Oakmont.  My caddie had his own way.  And while we’re discussing this, I want you to know I let him put things the way he wanted.”

“Of course,” I said.  “Golf is hard enough.  You don’t want an unhappy caddy, right?”

“That’s true, “ he said.

“And besides, you’re not pulling the clubs.  He’s handing them to you.”

“But I was afraid I might look in there and see they’re not where they’re supposed to be.”

“So don’t look.  You want your caddie not just hauling the clubs around, but doing what  a good caddie does, like our buddies Dave and Danny at Bandon.  The club schlepping is the easy part: it’s the psychological support you really need.”

“Yeah,” Lee said, “you’re right.  Like, you’ve just shanked your approach shot on the forth at Bandon Trails.  It’s the first round of five you’re playing over the next two days.  You break out in a cold sweat.  That’s when you want Dave to pat you on the back and say, ‘Lee, don’t worry, that happens to everybody.  We know what you’ve got.’ And then you stiff your third from 60 yards and off you go.”

“Correct.  The caddies at most clubs who loop for guests, at places like Cypress Point or San Francisco Golf Club, take ownership of your bag before they’re finished shaking your hand.  If you have one of those faux-tour behemoths, they grab a little carry bag, toss your clubs in there, make a calculated guess from watching your practice swing at how many balls you’re going to lose, and load the little bag with ammunition accordingly.  And off you go.  As Steve Williams supposedly told Tiger during their audition, ‘I’m a caddie, not a mule.’”

So Lee and I believe that when the caddie is on your bag he owns it.  You can put it back the way you like when he surrenders control.  And if his approach to organization makes you uncomfortable, avert your eyes.   It’s always good advice to worry only about what you control.  That’s the zen of golf: acceptance, toleration, surrender.

Brice Secord's Convenient Way to Carry a Tee

On the first tee I met Brice Secord, whose creativity in a game renowned for its traditional allegiances and conservative attitudes, was immediately obvious.  His play was so-so (as was mine, let’s be honest), but his fashion sense was clearly perfectly in tune with the Portland zeitgeist.  

Brice, who’s an apprentice lineman for PGE (one letter away from being in the PGA, as close as any of us can aspire to), carries a tee in each ear.  Before he found his calling climbing utility poles, he worked as a piercer in a Portland tattoo parlor, establishing his creative chops in a revered Portland creative arena.  Once his ear holes were wide enough for thick plugs, but several years working at PGE, where dangling baubles are not encouraged, has reduced them to the perfect dimension to hold a golf tee.

On the day we played, Brice went with the navy blue pegs, but has experimented with other colors, depending on his mood.   The ear tee adds a new phrase to the vocabulary of the links.  Someday Brice’s innovation may rank with Gene Sarazen’s discovery of “bounce” in the sand wedge, or Dick Halmstetter’s experiments for Callaway with giant metal drivers, saving forests of persimmon.  I expect the Secord approach to tee management to have a lasting influence among Portland’s creative golfers.

The Tee Ring

It means a lot if you’re Tim Webb of Tacit Golf, and you created these flagsticks and cups.  You’ve watched with pride as they’ve been embraced not just at the Old Course and Celtic Manor, but by almost every great course in the UK, a success driven not by marketing hype but through word-of-mouth, one satisfied greenkeeper passing on his discovery to another.  Gleneagles, Carnoustie, Wentworth, Royal St Georges, Walton Heath, Queenwood and Royal Country Down – the crème de la crème use Tacit cups and flagsticks.   “We’re now in 60% of the courses in the British Isles,” says Webb.

Gordon Moir is the Director of Greenkeeping for the St Andrews Links Trust.  In that role Moir is responsible for safeguarding a legacy that extends from the Old Course, the granddaddy of golf courses everywhere, to the Castle Course, a brilliant example of modern golf design executed by a son of Scotland, David McLay Kidd.    “At St Andrews Links,” Moir says,  “we have found the Tacit hole cups to be long lasting– especially the liners, which are excellent. They stand up well to windy conditions,” he confirms, “and help the hole keep its shape”

So what makes a better cup, anyway, and who needs it?

One of the great challenges in any business is figuring out how to create a premium product in a commodity space.  And the golf cup is about as basic as it gets—who thinks much about the quality of the cup, unless something goes wrong, like the flagstick getting stuck?  (And why do caddies make sure to pull the flagstick before their players putt, resting it gently in the hole?  Partly to avoid shadows, but mainly to make sure they don’t leave it in the cup and cost their player strokes.)

The golf cup is younger than the game—the requirement for a cup is just over one hundred years old, while the game is five times that age.  The original cups were installed simply to keep the hole from growing unsportingly large.  It was long the custom for players to grab a handful of sand out of the hole when they retrieved their balls and use it to build a little cone-shaped tee on the driving ground.   The first recorded hole was used at Musselburgh, near Edinburgh, in 1829, adapted from a drain tile and measuring 4 ½ inches in diameter.  In 1891, the R & A standardized that as the legal cup size in its official rules.  And while hole-cutters and other devices made holes more precise as the years went by, a cup was a cup was a cup….until Tim Webb’s TACIT hole cup came on the market nearly two decades ago.

The perfection of the cup came not from a moment of inspiration, Webb says, but “through years of trial and error.  The first problem was figuring out how to keep top dressing from jamming up the flagstick.  When the flagstick’s too tight it makes the hole wobble in the wind, which can affect the hole’s shape.  Then we had to figure out how to keep the cup from sinking into the greensmix, a problem when people jam the hole back into the cup.  And we wanted to minimize wear if we could.  Tacit is the only cup/ferrule system that actively sheds the top dressing away from the central bore and also effectively seals the central bore top and bottom.”

Mating the Flagstick with the Cup

The European PGA Tour staff responsible for setting up its courses travels with a set of TACIT cups, Webb says.  “At the WGC – HSBC Championship last November at the Sheshan International Golf Course in Shanghai,” he notes, “they used our cups and flagsticks.”   But unlike most golf industry products these days, TACIT’s products are made not in China, but in the UK.  “We employ around 30 people,” Webb says.  “We’ve sold almost exclusively in the UK, but we have developed an American model—it has a larger bore than the UK model— and are just setting up our sales and distribution in the US.  Our advertising inserts have attracted a lot of interest, especially from daily fee courses looking for ways to boost revenues.”

The TACIT cup is milled aluminum, so the insert—which can be blank for televised events or feature a club’s crest or printed with a logo for corporate outings—fits smoothly against the margins, seamless to the touch.   The blanks sell for about $1.50, and it costs another $5.00 or so to add a decal.   “For annual events, the inserts can be re-used for many years,”  Webb says.  “A course can easily sell that advertising for $450 per event, so it can be a simple, on-going revenue stream.”

The flagstick was the final element in TACIT’s solution to perfecting the cup and pin.  “It has a high fiberglass content,” Webb says, “so it doesn’t bend so much in the wind.  The PVC coating then keeps it from chipping or scratching—the colors last longer and look brighter.”  Mated with its ferrule, the flagstick will rotate within its gromit rather than twisting the cup itself.   This, too, extends the life of the cups and flags.   “The coating,” Webb says, “also assures that no fiberglass splinters will pierce the hand of any potential litigious golfer—surely a selling point in the USA.”

For more information on TACIT: www.tacitgolf.co.uk/

In the US, contact RS Carlson and Associates, 503 788-7865