Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

“If there’s one truism in sports, it’s that records are made to be broken.  Golf is no exception.”

That was the lead in a story in my on-line golf magazine, Links, which prompted me to decide whether I agree or not.

A fun exercise for me because I love golf, which occupies a lot of my time in retirement.

One thing is clear:  The records below will not be touched by me because I am not a pro golfer, preferring to play what I label “recreational golf.”

At the same time, one of my friends, commenting on this issue said he found it hard to believe that various records would not be broken, thus echoing the first line in the Links article – “records are made to be broken.”

Here is the list in the Links story written by Joe Passov, who contends these records are untouchable:

10. Bobby Jones’s calendar-year Grand Slam

9. Jin Young Ko plays 114 consecutive bogey-free holes on the LPGA Tour

8. Tiger Woods’s 142 consecutive cuts made

7. Tiger Woods winning the 2000 U.S. Open by 15 shots

6. Kathy Whitworth’s 88 LPGA Tour victories

5. Tiger Woods’s 683 weeks ranked as World No. 1

4. Jack Nicklaus’s 18 major championships

3. Jack Nicklaus’s top-3 finishes in majors

2. Byron Nelson’s 18 PGA Tour victories in a single season

1. Byron Nelson’s 11 consecutive PGA Tour victories

Hard to disagree with Passov’s contentions, though I suspect someone, someplace, will shoot a 57…a record to be broken.

Who knows about others?

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

We are witnessing first-hand what happens when school districts lose enrollment and have to consider closing schools.

Parents and others rise up to advocate for their schools before closure proposals become final.

Elected members of school boards face tough decisions – decisions that will leave almost no one content.

The two districts:

• Portland Public Schools, the state’s largest, where 13 schools have made the potential closure list.

• Salem-Keizer Schools, the state’s second largest, where six schools are on the chopping block.

None of this will be final until the two boards act in a few weeks.

To get a picture of this, let’s look at the case of Candalaria Grade School in South Salem, the school our two children attended several years ago.

If there were still in school now, we’d likely be among fighting against closure, given how much the school did for our children.  Driving by the school the other day, I saw groups standing outside preparing to oppose closure.  Then, I also say signs sprouting up around the neighborhood saying “save Candalaria.”  Something like a political campaign, which, in a way, it is.

Here is how Salem Reporter characterized the rational for Candalaria being on the list.

“Of Salem-Keizer’s 42 elementary schools, Candalaria is the only building in which district officials identified major concerns in all seven categories of the Site Viability Analysis, which helped officials narrow down which schools to consider for closure.

“The seven categories examined were capital investment needs, site limitations, enrollment patterns, facility conditions that prevent equitable use, transportation, operating costs, and educational adequacy — if the building impedes teaching conditions.

“The inaccessibility of Candalaria was a major red flag for the district, with the technical guide categorizing it as ‘one of the district’s more challenging school sites.’  Candalaria is on a hill with a steep walkway leading to the outdoor play areas, and the multi-floor building lacks elevators.

“The accessibility for students with disabilities, anyone with disabilities, is very, very limited outside and inside the building.

“The school also lacks a cooling system and has had problems with radon, a gas that can cause lung cancer

“The district’s technical guide to Candalaria notes that the school’s close proximity to other buildings with space for additional students was another reason the school was selected.  Candalaria is at 57 per cent enrollment this year.

“The district estimates that the cost of deferred maintenance is $3.7 million, including a need to replace the fire alarms, much of the HVAC system and the water heaters.”

On this basis, there appears to be enough information to support closure.

But what will happen is a collision between facts and figures on one hand and emotion on the other hand.

There is no way to tell which side will win.  School districts with declining enrollment believe they have no choice but to downsize.  Parents believe they no choice but to advocate for their kids.

In these political battles, it is clear no one will win outright.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

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This is the second blog in a series where I report what Google says about incredible statistics.  Can you believe what it says?  Who knows, but still incredible!

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The more I find out about the universe the more I CHOOSE to believe in God as creator.

What exists could not have just happened by chance.  There had to be an architect, God.

The issue of God and science arose recently in a Links Players Group Bible Study I attend at the golf course where I am a member in Salem, Oregon, Illahe Hills Golf and Country Club.

The writer of the lesson asked the question about science and God and those of us around the table came down on the side of answering, “yes, God and science exist together.”

Buoyed by that discussion, I decided to do a little more research, if you can call consulting Google research.  In any event, that’s where I went to gain more information.

For instance, regarding the galaxy where we exist, the Milky Way.  It is huge, beyond human comprehension.

1. At the speed of light, which is about 186,000 miles per second, it would take 100,000 to 200,000 years to cross the Milky Way.

• At the speed of the fastest human-made spacecraft, NASA’s Voyager, it would take roughly 1.7 billion years to make the crossing.

• And, walking at a standard human pace of about 3 ½ miles per hour, it would take about 21 billion years to make the crossing.

As startling and compelling as these facts are more for me, recognize this:  These facts only apply to the Milky Way, not to other galaxies beyond our own, such as Andromeda.

Meanwhile, Google reports that arguments for the existence of God based on the universe are traditionally grouped into several major philosophical, scientific, and theological categories – these:

Category #1: Cosmological Factors (The Origin of the Universe)

• The Beginning of Time:  The prevailing scientific consensus is that the universe had a definitive beginning roughly 13.8 billion years ago (the Big Bang).  Philosophers argue that anything that begins to exist must have a cause, pointing to a creator outside of time and space.
• Contingency:  The universe does not have to exist; its existence is contingent on something else.  This points to the necessity of a non-contingent, self-sustaining “Being” that brought everything else into existence.

Category #2:  Teleological Factors (Fine-Tuning and Design)

• The Fine-Tuning of Physics:  The fundamental constants of nature — such as the strength of gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the mass of subatomic particles — are set to unimaginably precise values.  If any of these values were altered by even a hair’s breadth, matter could not form, stars could not exist, and life would be impossible.
• Cosmic Order:  The universe operates under uniform, predictable laws of physics rather than chaotic, random behavior.

Category #3:  Biological Factors (Complexity and Life)

• The Complexity of DNA:  DNA functions like a highly sophisticated digital code or software program, containing complex, specified information.  In human experience, information codes always originate from an intelligent mind.
• The Origin of Life:  The transition from non-living chemicals to a living, self-replicating cell involves a massive leap in complexity that science has yet to fully explain purely through materialistic processes.
• Irreducible Complexity:  Certain biological systems (like the bacterial flagellum or the blood-clotting cascade) require all their individual parts to function. They could not have evolved step-by-step because the intermediate stages would serve no survival purpose.

Category #4:  Experiential and Rational Factors

• Consciousness:  The existence of subjective experience, self-awareness, and a mind capable of abstract thought is difficult to explain purely through the collision of blind physical particles.
• Objective Morality:  The universal human recognition of objective right and wrong implies a standard or a lawgiver outside of human opinion.

Then, armed with the facts above, though I don’t fully grasp them, I was prompted to go on to examine what is meant by the term “fine tuning.”

Here is a summary of what I found:

Key Examples of Fine-Tuning

• The Strength of Gravity:  If gravity were different by even one part in 10⁶⁰, stars and galaxies could never have formed — either collapsing inward too fast or dispersing too quickly.
• The Cosmological Constant:  This drives the expansion rate of space.  A change of just a fraction in its value would have caused the universe to either collapse back on itself or fly apart too fast for matter to cluster.
• The Strong Nuclear Force:  If it were slightly weaker, atomic nuclei couldn’t bind together (preventing heavy elements).  If slightly stronger, all hydrogen would have converted immediately into helium.

Do I understand what I just wrote?  Well, at least not fully, if it at all.

So, persevered to find examples and of fine tuning, such as:

1.  The Aircraft Carrier Analogy

The Analogy:  Imagine comparing the mass density of the universe to a massive aircraft carrier (like the USS John C. Stennis, which is more than 1,000 feet long and weighs 100,000 tons).

The Lesson:  If you subtract just a billionth of a trillionth of the mass of a single electron from that entire ship, it would sink.  

•  The Bullseye Across the Universe

The Analogy:  The expansion rate of the Big Bang had to be calibrated to an accuracy of 1 part in \(10^{60}\).

The Lesson:  This level of precision has been compared to firing a single bullet from the edge of the observable universe (20 billion light-years away) and hitting a 1-inch target.  If it were off by a tiny fraction, the universe would have either collapsed back in on itself or expanded too fast for galaxies to form.

•  The North American Dimes Stack

The Analogy:  To visualize the 1 in \(10^{37}\) precision of the strong nuclear force, imagine stacking dimes across the entire North American continent, piling them all the way up to the moon, and then repeating that entire stack a billion times over.

The Lesson:  If you paint one single dime red and hide it in that unimaginable mountain of silver coins, the odds of blindly picking the red dime on your first try represent the fine-tuning of the strong nuclear force.  Change it by even a fraction, and atomic nuclei (and life) fall apart.

So, my finite mind glazes over as I review facts such as those above.

For me, the question of God and science boils down to a simple, yet profound, word:  Choice.

I choose to believe that God created the universe.  It did not happen just by chance.  A lot evidence supports my view, but in the end, again, it boils down to choice.

I choose to believe in God as creator.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

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Note:  This is the first of two blogs in which I share incredible statistics honed from Google, which is infused by AI.  True?  Who knows?  I hope so.

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A headline in the New York Times caught my attention and prompted me to try to understand what a “billion” really is.

The headline:  California May Tax Its Billionaires.  The Billionaires Are Fighting Back

In a random run-through of newspapers I read every morning, beyond this headline, I lost count of the number of times I read the word “billion.”  Let’s just say many.

We hear a lot these days about the rich folks who have several billion dollars in their bank accounts.  Phil Knight.  Elon Musk.  Others.

Can they afford higher taxes in California and elsewhere?  Of course, the answer is “yes.”  But, in California and elsewhere, they don’t want to pay more, so they fight or leave the state.

Regarding one name above – Phil Knight – credit should do where it deserves to go.  Which is to give Knight and his wife due credit for making huge multi-million-dollar donations to fund academic and athletic programs at their alma mater, the University of Oregon.

As for Musk, who knows what he does with his money.

Still, to find out more about what a “billion” means, I consulted Google, as I often do.  Here is a summary of some common real-world examples to visualize how big a billion is:

• Counting out loud:  If you count every single second without stopping, it takes about 31.7 years to reach 1 billion.  Incredible!

• A billion seconds:  1 billion seconds is equal to about 31.68 years (compared to 1 million seconds, which is only about 11.5 days).  Again, incredible!

• Human Population:  Countries such India and China each have more than 1.4 billion people; the total population of Africa is more than 1.2 billion.

• Insects on Earth:  There are estimated to be roughly 1 billion ants alive for every single human being on earth.  Who does this counting?

• Stars in a Galaxy:  The Milky Way galaxy contains roughly 100 billion to 400 billion stars.  Again, who does this counting?

• Internet & Apps:  Several major global platforms — such as WhatsApp, TikTok, and YouTube — have crossed 1 billion active users.

• Websites: There are more than 1 billion websites on the internet.

• Time comparison in currency:  $1 million in 1-dollar bills weighs about one ton; $1 billion in 1-dollar bills weighs about 1,000 tons and would require a massive storage space or heavy-duty trucks to haul.

Another question persists.  As noted above, who knows all this stuff on Google and how do they know what they know?  For example, how does someone know that there are one billion ants alive for every single human being on earth?  Who counts?  And how do they count?

Now, aren’t you glad you know all this?  Probably a billion times glad, right?

FIVE MISUNDERSTOOD GOLF RULES

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

As a golf rules afficionado, I love looking them.  Who knows who!

So it was that I read a Golf Digest article that appeared under the headline I used for this blog.

Here are Golf Digest’s “top five” misunderstood rules of golf.

1.  Does the player who is farthest from the hole always play first?

In match play, the answer is “yes” and, if a player closer to the hole ends of playing first, he or she may have to play the shot over again.  Plus, the status of being on or off the green doesn’t matter.  If you are away, you always play first.

In stroke play, it doesn’t matter who plays first, though the usual approach is that, if you are closer to the hole, you ask permission from the farthest-out player to go first.  But not required.

•  Do you get relief from boundary objects such as OB stakes or fences?

The answer is “no.”  You have to play the ball as it lies, even if that means you club encounters the obstruction or if you end up hitting the ball off the obstruction to get into better play.

•  Is there lateral relief for penalty areas marked yellow?

The answer is “no.”  Even if your ball carries the pond and rolls back in; you still have to drop the ball in order to go over the water again.  In some courses, there might be a designated drop zone to allow an improved result.

•  Is there always relief from the sprinkler head on your line?

Not always.  Under normal golf rules, you only get relief if your golf ball, your stance or swing are impeded by the sprinkler head.  Sometimes, those who run golf courses have the option of a local rule that provides more relief.

•  Do you have the option of playing a provisional ball if it is known or virtually certain that your golf ball is in a penalty area?

The answer is “no,” though many golfers think the answer is “yes.”  It’s not.

Now, aren’t you glad you know all this?

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

This blog headline puts it as simply as it can be put:  LIV golf doesn’t appear to have much future.

Count me among those who don’t care.  If LIV comes crashing down, okay.

As it started a few years ago, using tainted Saudi money, LIV enticed players to leave the PGA Tour, which had produced a solid livelihood for those who left. The incentive was to get rich quick.

Many players who were defecting from the PGA Tour tried to say they were doing so for the good of the game and to grow it.  Hogwash!

One player, Harold Varner, said he was leaving to take the money for the good of his family and I saluted him then – and do so now – for his honesty.

Today, key players for LIV – Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Cameron Smith, Juaquin Niemann – are trying to leave LIV as it floats just above the surface.

Here is how golf writer Eamon Lynch put it GolfWeek in a column that appeared under this headline:  “In the next 10 days, LIV’s free agents will realize how little freedom and agency they really have.”

“It’s a sobering sign of how upside down golf is that we’ve reached the improbable point where Sergio Garcia is a leader among those trying to leave LIV.

“He’s complaining, of course, but only in the legal realm.  On September 30, the Spaniard’s lawyers asked a New Jersey bankruptcy court to either terminate his contract with LIV Golf or give him the right to do so, arguing that a lack of clarity on the league’s future unfairly limits his ability to investigate alternative options.”

Lynch said it is ironic that Garcia is becoming a poster child for those who want to leave LIV.

“A cynic might add that advance planning should include stockpiling baby wipes on whatever tour is luckless enough to host Garcia, whether it’s the one he said he couldn’t wait to leave (PGA), the one he shouted was “f****d” because it didn’t take Saudi money (Europe), or the one he reportedly embarrassed with his club-smashing antics at the Masters (LIV).”

More from Lynch:

“Most of LIV’s existing player agreements are expected to be terminated in the bankruptcy restructuring, though players could agree new deals to remain for LIV 2.0.  Garcia hasn’t ruled out doing that, but wants the flexibility to investigate other avenues now.

“That can’t happen while the PGA Tour and DP World Tour refuse to entertain approaches by LIV players unless they can prove they’re free of all contractual obligations, a demand that has flummoxed agents accustomed to being taken at their worthless word.”

Per the terms of its proposed investment from BC Partners to reinvent the circuit, LIV has 35 days from filing bankruptcy to sign half of the players to whom it owes money, and those players must collectively represent two-thirds of all monies owed to its roster. The first threshold is reachable since most of its members are washed-ups or never-weres with limited options.

The second is trickier since LIV doesn’t have the buy-in of its biggest creditor, Rahm, who said he had decided to leave.  But, LIV might cobble together enough I.O.U.’s from others to satisfy the requirement.

Many of those wanting to leave LIV 2.0 are reaching out to the PGA Tour in America or the DP Tour in Europe.

So far, the doors appear to be closed.

From Lynch:

“In response to an inquiry, a DP World Tour spokesperson acknowledged a ‘high volume of inbound interest and enquiries in recent weeks,’ and said it’s exploring terms on which those players might be accommodated, ‘provided they are free from third-party contractual restrictions and are willing to abide by our membership regulations.’

“What that means, sources say, is that LIV refugees might get starts, but not in lucrative Rolex Series events, and that anyone who re-ups with LIV 2.0 risks being bum-rushed to the exit.”

For the PGA Tour, it is wary of exposing itself to tortious interference claims by talking to still-contracted LIV players.  Plus, it appears that the PGA tour is not open to players going the route of Brooks Koepka who was able to cut a deal to return with two at least two provisos — (a) not being as able to play in some high-profile events, and (b) making a $5 million donation to a charity.

My final view:  Let’s go PGA Tour.  Count on your best players to play.  Avoid LIV.  Play on.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

This blog headline puts it as simply as it can be put:  LIV golf doesn’t appear to have much future.

Count me among those who don’t care.  If LIV comes crashing down, okay.

As it started a few years ago, using tainted Saudi money, LIV enticed players to leave the PGA Tour, which had produced a solid livelihood for those who left. The incentive was to get rich quick.

Many players who were defecting from the PGA Tour tried to say they were doing so for the good of the game and to grow it.  Hogwash!

One player, Harold Varner, said he was leaving to take the money for the good of his family and I saluted him then – and do so now – for his honesty.

Today, key players for LIV – Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Cameron Smith, Juaquin Niemann – are trying to leave LIV as it floats just above the surface.

Here is how golf writer Eamon Lynch put it GolfWeek in a column that appeared under this headline:  “In the next 10 days, LIV’s free agents will realize how little freedom and agency they really have.”

“It’s a sobering sign of how upside down golf is that we’ve reached the improbable point where Sergio Garcia is a leader among those trying to leave LIV.

“He’s complaining, of course, but only in the legal realm.  On September 30, the Spaniard’s lawyers asked a New Jersey bankruptcy court to either terminate his contract with LIV Golf or give him the right to do so, arguing that a lack of clarity on the league’s future unfairly limits his ability to investigate alternative options.”

Lynch said it is ironic that Garcia is becoming a poster child for those who want to leave LIV.

“A cynic might add that advance planning should include stockpiling baby wipes on whatever tour is luckless enough to host Garcia, whether it’s the one he said he couldn’t wait to leave (PGA), the one he shouted was “f****d” because it didn’t take Saudi money (Europe), or the one he reportedly embarrassed with his club-smashing antics at the Masters (LIV).”

More from Lynch:

“Most of LIV’s existing player agreements are expected to be terminated in the bankruptcy restructuring, though players could agree new deals to remain for LIV 2.0.  Garcia hasn’t ruled out doing that, but wants the flexibility to investigate other avenues now.

“That can’t happen while the PGA Tour and DP World Tour refuse to entertain approaches by LIV players unless they can prove they’re free of all contractual obligations, a demand that has flummoxed agents accustomed to being taken at their worthless word.”

Per the terms of its proposed investment from BC Partners to reinvent the circuit, LIV has 35 days from filing bankruptcy to sign half of the players to whom it owes money, and those players must collectively represent two-thirds of all monies owed to its roster. The first threshold is reachable since most of its members are washed-ups or never-weres with limited options.

The second is trickier since LIV doesn’t have the buy-in of its biggest creditor, Rahm, who said he had decided to leave.  But, LIV might cobble together enough I.O.U.’s from others to satisfy the requirement.

Many of those wanting to leave LIV 2.0 are reaching out to the PGA Tour in America or the DP Tour in Europe.

So far, the doors appear to be closed.

From Lynch:

“In response to an inquiry, a DP World Tour spokesperson acknowledged a ‘high volume of inbound interest and enquiries in recent weeks,’ and said it’s exploring terms on which those players might be accommodated, ‘provided they are free from third-party contractual restrictions and are willing to abide by our membership regulations.’

“What that means, sources say, is that LIV refugees might get starts, but not in lucrative Rolex Series events, and that anyone who re-ups with LIV 2.0 risks being bum-rushed to the exit.”

For the PGA Tour, it is wary of exposing itself to tortious interference claims by talking to still-contracted LIV players.  Plus, it appears that the PGA tour is not open to players going the route of Brooks Koepka who was able to cut a deal to return with two at least two provisos — (a) not being as able to play in some high-profile events, and (b) making a $5 million donation to a charity.

My final view:  Let’s go PGA Tour.  Count on your best players to play.  Avoid LIV.  Play on.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Whatever you think of California Governor Gavin Newsom, he made a logical plea yesterday.

Regarding Donald Trump, Newsome said it’s time to enact the 25^th amendment, a constitutional provision that establishes procedures for declaring that a president is unable to perform the duties of the top political job.

Based on reporting from Time Magazine and other credible news outlets, Newsom issued his plea after Trump made remarks Monday suggesting an attack by Iran on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego would be “a small price to pay.” 

From Time:

“Newsom has referred to the 25th Amendment before, alongside other lawmakers and critics, who have suggested that, among other things, Trump’s struggle to find an off-ramp for the war he started with Iran in February — and his expressions of willingness to let civilians in Iran and the U.S. die en masse — suggest that he is unfit to hold office.” 

Is Newsom’s plea just more political grandstanding from a governor widely seen as a potential Democrat presidential candidate in the 2028 election?

Yes, at least in part.

But, given Trump’s record – not caring about lives he condemns to death in war or his fight against immigrants – it strikes me that Newsom has a good point.

More from Time:

“In separate posts across multiple social media accounts following Trump’s Monday remark, Newsom warned that the president’s comment was not only ‘madness’ but also ‘dangerous’ and ‘deranged.’  Speaking to journalist Jim Acosta, Newsom argued that the statement puts over 130,000 active-duty military personnel stationed in San Diego at risk:  ‘Don’t think for a second our adversaries aren’t listening to that.’

“Newsom also claimed that Trump’s remark could be ‘treasonous.’  He posted that the president’s statements make one of the U.S.’s largest naval hubs a potential target and that he directed California’s State Threat Assessment Center ‘to actively monitor the situation in the event that foreign actors interpret the President’s remarks as an invitation to target the state.’”

The White House responded by defending Trump.

Will action on the 25^th amendment come to pass?  The best answer is no, if only because Congress, at least the current one and perhaps the next one would not go along.

But it is worth reflecting on the actions and words of the president which strike many as indicating that he is mentally ill and thus unfit to hold the office he holds.  Which means that we will have to find a way to survive the next two years.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

In all aspects of my profession, I used words to deliver a result.

That’s one of the reasons why I like words better charts, graphs, or even photos.

So, as the director of the Department of Words Matter, I open the department, one of five I run, to consider the following.

Example #1:  The word eleemosynary

Yes, hard to pronounce, but it is a word.  It means supporting charity.  Such as in this sentence:  Her focus was to emphasize her eleemosynary work.

I had never heard the word until I worked at the Capitol in Salem, Oregon as a lobbyist.  I came into contact with it in relation to my work on major health care policy issues where, besides government funding, charity care was also a key ingredient then and remains so now.

At that time, the strange word prompted me to advise my associates that, if they managed to use the word in formal testimony to legislators, I would buy them dinner as a reward.

No one ever managed to take me up on it.

But it is still an open invitation.

Case #2:  Words Known By Dogs

Have you ever found yourself spelling out “w-a-l-k” or “t-r-e-a-t” to avoid sending your dog into a frenzy?  If so, you know that dogs can understand at least some of what we say, even in terms of spelling.

But how many words do dogs know?

Experts report that most dogs understand around 80 and100 words, but some highly trained dogs can learn hundreds.

Our dog at home – Callaway (yes, I named by golf clubs after him) – knows the words “walk” and “treat,” if not a number of others.  He never tells us which one he knows because he would rather surprise us.  I think he also knows how to spell certain words when we use that strategy to avoid alerting him to what’s coming.

Several studies have shown that dogs have an ability to understand words at a level similar to that of human infants.

Our experience show that is true.

Case #3:  “Back and forth?”

As my wife and I were walking early this morning, I found myself uttering the phrase “back and forth.”

Then, with nothing else important to do, I wondered why we say that.

Shouldn’t it be “forth and back.”

Because you never go back first.

See, in retirement, I have found time to ask questions about all sorts of words.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

On occasion, a writer produces a column for a newspaper that is worth repeating intact in my blog.

Such is the case today as I carry a column by Thomas Friedman that appeared in the New York Times under the headline I used for this blog.

The first phrase in the column caught my attention:  “President Trump is such an awful human being that just writing about him feels degrading.”

I share Friedman’s perception about the worst president in U.S. history – Donald Trump.  Writing about him feels degrading.

But I persist.  Here is the Friedman column.

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What president would denigrate his predecessor in front of China’s leader the way Trump mocked Joe Biden, now suffering from cancer, by pointing out that a framed picture of an autopen was hanging in the White House instead of Biden’s portrait?

Alas, though, when someone as morally warped as Trump — whose first secretary of state called him a “moron” — assumes this much unchecked power at the dawn of the Age of Artificial Intelligence, he can’t be ignored. Because right now Trump is leaving America exposed to dangerous viruses: digital, biological and diplomatic. Something bad is going to happen to us as a result. We and our children are going to pay for this, and not only at the gas pump.

Let me start with the digital virus now on the loose. Recently, OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta and Google all disclosed incidents in which their artificial intelligence models escaped their controls and gallivanted about hacking other computer systems — including an Australian government website, the Hugging Face platform and websites of the U.S. Commerce Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Remember, these are infant A.I. systems; they’re still in diapers and yet to be supercharged by fully training themselves and leaving their human designers behind.

And remember, too, the stories above are about what the good guys are doing. Talk to any major cyberprotection expert at any major U.S. company, and you’ll be terrified by stories about what the bad guys are doing with smaller A.I. models that they have gotten their hands on, with the controls stripped out.

The CrowdStrike Global Threat Report said attacks by “A.I.-enabled adversaries” increased by 89 percent in 2025 compared with the previous year, Infosecurity Magazine reported in February — and the rate has soared since.

But fear not, because our president, who doesn’t even use email, told the United Nations last week that he knows that our fears about A.I. safety are fraudulent. He referred to “the very same people who said we’ll all be dead in 12 years because of global warming.” He added: “And nobody was dead. These are the same people that are now saying that A.I. is going to kill us all.” (Untold thousands have died in catastrophes worsened by climate change in the last decade, and only in Trump’s fetid imagination did anyone say, “Sir, we’ll all be dead in 12 years.”)

Trump and his party — and the A.I. tech bros who have effectively paid them to keep their hands off their industry — had better pray that the “October surprise” in this coming midterm election is not a major, destructive A.I. event. If it is, they’d better have their spaceships ready to whisk them off to another planet where they can live forever, because this one may make their existences a living hell.

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This A.I. threat is not a hoax (nor is the climate threat a hoax, as Trump would know if he ever looked at his own administration’s NASA website). The only hoax is that Trump, who once suggested injecting bleach might be a good way to rid yourself of Covid-19, thinks he knows anything about A.I. or climate change — or bleach.

“It’s not a hoax at all,” Bill Gates said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. Gates said that the United States should restrain A.I. development until tougher safeguards are in place, and he argued that China would most likely do the same if Washington took the initiative to draft new rules to regulate the use of A.I.

A.I. without proper regulation is “completely irresponsible,” Gates said. “You need law enforcement and the politicians to get into the discussion about what safeguards and monitoring look like.” He concluded: “A.I. is certainly powerful enough to drive events that, you know, cause a billion deaths.”

Precisely because there has never been such a tool, despite its destructive potential, with so much promise to solve so many energy, climate and medical problems for humanity, I want to see A.I. thrive, as does Gates. Which is why we should all want to prevent now an A.I.-driven Sept. 11 that would completely delegitimize artificial intelligence in the public eye. That would be a double tragedy.

I wish that the only threat to us from Trump’s unrestrained ignorance were an A.I. virus. Sadly, last week, my Times colleague Apoorva Mandavilli reported that America’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, long the “undisputed global leader in public health,” has been so systematically dismantled by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that it is now “a skeleton of the powerhouse it was.”

Not only has the C.D.C.’s staff been reduced by some 30 percent, but, Mandavilli reported, citing current and former employees, “the changes have hindered the C.D.C.’s ability to respond to outbreaks as measles spreads at home and Ebola abroad, and to issue timely guidance on vaccinations as cooling temperatures kick off the respiratory season. … Entire divisions have been shuttered, including teams that worked on smoking, sexual violence, child abuse and falls among older adults.”

The Guardian newspaper carried a story about the spreading outbreak of measles in Pennsylvania, which has now topped 900 cases. Dr. John Goldman, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, said that between 1992 and 2026, he hadn’t seen a single case, The Guardian reported. Now, “We’re seeing at least one every day,” and he added, “Never in my life did I think I was ever going to see measles again.” This is an example of how Trump’s negligence is helping to spread actual, biological viruses.

But don’t forget the anti-diplomatic virus also sapping our strength. What is that? Check out this story in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, by its Middle East affairs expert Zvi Bar’el. It was about how the diplomatic incompetence of the Trump administration and the malevolence of the cabinet of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have combined to grind the 20-point Trump peace plan for Gaza to a halt. So Gazan civilians, many living in war-broken buildings, one of which collapsed on Sept. 16, killing at least 21 people, including 11 children, remain in total squalor.

When Trump launched his vaunted Gaza Board of Peace and made himself chairman, participating countries pledged $17 billion for Gaza. But “as far as is known, less than $300 million has been transferred,” Bar’el reported.

Moreover, the peace plan’s international stabilization force has yet to be established. The Palestinian police force to replace Hamas, which is supposed to operate under a Palestinian technocratic government, was supposed to receive training in Egypt, “but Israel is preventing them from leaving Gaza,” according to Bar’el.

Then Bar’el peeled back the real story: “The stalemate in Gaza serves Israel. Hamas no longer poses a security threat, but as long as it holds territory, Israel retains a pretext for resuming the war. And as long as the Strip remains devastated and unlivable, the pressure on the people to leave only grows.” He added that Netanyahu’s defense minister, Israel Katz, after being criticized by a rival politician for not achieving a more decisive victory over Hamas, declared that the Israeli military was ready, if ordered, to eliminate Hamas “so that the emigration plan can be implemented.”

So that the emigration plan can be implemented.

Really? What is that? That is Orwellian speak for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza of Palestinians by the Netanyahu government. And what have Trump and his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said in response? Zilch.

I’ve learned over the years that diplomacy operates like a virus as well, beneficially or detrimentally: The more success you have, the more respect you get; the more respect you get, the more success you have. Conversely, the more failure you have, the less allies trust joining you, so the more failure you have.

Example: Between March and October 1991, Secretary of State James A. Baker III made eight diplomatic trips to the Middle East to put together the Madrid peace conference — the first among Israel, the Palestine Liberation Organization and several Arab states. I made all eight trips with him as The Times’s diplomatic correspondent. He failed on the first seven, but Baker would not quit and he got it done on the eighth.

Show me a single diplomatic initiative the Trump administration has built since the cease-fire in Gaza, which Trump has left to languish. It’s as if all he cared about was the headline from the signing, after which he amazingly declared last October 13: “Together, we’ve achieved what everybody said was impossible. At long last we have peace in the Middle East.”

Now that’s what I call a real hoax.

There is no energetic, focused follow-up because there are no clear lines of authority. You have Thomas Barrack, who is the special envoy for Syria and Iraq and the ambassador to Turkey, making his own policy statements. You have Massad Fares Boulos, the father-in-law of Trump’s daughter Tiffany, serving as a senior adviser to the president of the United States on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs. You have part-timers, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. You have various assistant secretaries of state and defense. And you have Trump on his social media feed. (Somebody is going to make this into a musical!)

What you don’t have is a secretary of state like Baker, relentlessly focusing and leveraging American power and making trip after trip after trip until he gets the job done.

The only thing Trump relentlessly follows up on is harassing the press. Last Saturday, after being forced by a judge to allow CNN reporters back in the White House after Trump illegally banned them because their coverage was not fawning enough, the president nevertheless blocked CNN from accompanying him on Air Force One to attend a football game in Tennessee.

When it comes to denouncing the press, Trump is laser-focused. But when dealing with the digital, biological and diplomatic viruses weakening our national immune system, not so much — to our great peril.

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A footnote:  I want to offer kudos to columnists like Friedman, Frank Bruni, and Karen Tumulty for their rigorous pursuit of Trump fables.  They represent what journalism ought to be about.