This 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.

I have a couple go-to strategies to organize my thoughts.

One is to use retired late night host Dave Letterman’s approach to develop a “Top 10 List.” Otherwise, I could have 50 topics on my list.

The second is to use a movie title – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – to prompt organization.

This time I use that movie title to align a few comments about the state of the game I love, golf.

THE GOOD:  Grayson Murray, who is living free of alcoholism for eight months now after defining himself as an “alcoholic,” conquered a lot of demons when he won the Sony Open in Hawaii.  And he made a 40-foot on the first playoff hole to do so.

Yes, 40 feet!

MORE GOOD in comments from long-time pro golfer Stewart
Cink (or it is “good” or bad”):  He is playing the regular tour on occasion at age 50, so has been around the professional golf block.  What he said recently made GolfWeek:

“A 29-year pro, Cink has witnessed the PGA Tour transform from a medium-sized league to a professional sports behemoth — and then watched again as that behemoth grew big enough to become the target of a rival league funded by a foreign autocracy.

“By now you know about the signature events series, a circuit of eight big-money PGA Tour events, many of which feature limited fields and no cuts. The series was made primarily to help the PGA Tour stymie the threat of LIV defections by allowing its best players to compete against one another more often for larger paychecks.

“The downside of that shift, however, was what it did to the Tour’s so-called ‘working class.’  Those players, who rank outside of the top 50 in the FedEx Cup rankings, are not guaranteed entrance into the signature events series, a development that leaves them in a considerably weaker financial position than their top-50 counterparts.

“Cink says he understands the market forces that led to Tour being the way it now is, and he was careful not to point his criticism in the direction of Tour leadership for making the best of a very difficult situation.  But he echoed a complaint we’ve heard from a series of pros outside the top 50 over the last nine months:  The Tour changes create a closed system, making it difficult for those who fall outside the top-50 from ever making it in.

“’To me, it’s a little bit out of balance. I understand where it all came from. We had to do something because we had a competing venture out there trying to swallow our players up,’ Cink said.  ‘We had to give our players a reason to stay, so I get it.  It’s not easy, but where I’m sitting I don’t really love it.”

What to do?  Who knows?  It’s just that the trend is not good for the game of golf.  Perhaps it’s just capitalism. 

But “good” comments from Cink make it “bad” for golf.

THE BAD:  Several writers of letters-to-the-editor in Global Golf Post said that they and many golf fans are leaving the game, at least watching it, perhaps only to stay with the “major events.”

The reasons?  What is stated above – the aim to offset LIV golf and pay huge sums to a few golfers. 

THE UGLY:  There was a terrible golf ruling the other day as golfer Carl Yuan came to the 18^th hole in the Sony Open.

He hit his second shot on the par 5 closing hole far to the right and it was hard to tell where it landed, given the corporate tent in the way.

But, rather than look for the ball before a ruling, the official on-site just gave Yuan a free drop in a far better spot than would have been the case IF the ball had been found.  And, I put IF in caps because that was a key.

The ball could have been lost or could have been out-of-bounds and, in either case under normal golf rules, he would have had to go back to the spot of his second shot and hit again, with a two-stroke penalty.

At the very least, the official on the site should have asked for a second opinion before delivering, in short order, the quick ruling – and a bad one at that.

The upshot?  The good news is that Yuan did not make the extra hole playoff.  Still, the ruling snafu qualifies as “ugly.”

**********

And this post-script, another GOOD.

I attended another “Tale of the Tour” event last night near where we live in La Quinta, California, in the winter, just before the American Express pro event, which gets under way Thursday.

With leadership provided by former pro golfer Jeff Cranford, now a pastor in the California desert, four golfers summarized how they play golf, why they play golf, and how “being a golfer” does not comprise “their identity.”

All four said they relied on God for their ability to perform and their status, even those they also said God doesn’t always “make them play great.” 

Good stuff from the four who had their life in balance!