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ESPN’s Bob Harig on Tiger, The PGA Tour, The Ryder Cup and more

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ESPN BOB HARIG

Bob Harig, ESPN’s senior golf writer and 20-year veteran of golf journalism, was kind enough to chat with me about golf’s hottest topics. He touched on the wraparound season and its potential alternatives, the FedEx Cup, slow play on tour and in recreational play, Phil Mickelson, the Ryder Cup, and of course, Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods, as well as what to look forward to in the upcoming year.

The veteran scribe had many an interesting take you’ll want to check out below. I transcribed his replies and indicated the discussion topics in bold. Enjoy!

On the wraparound season…

It’s a necessary evil the way we’re doing it. You had these tournaments after the Tour Championship—six or seven tournaments that counted for the same season — which never really made sense to me … it’s like playing games after the World Series. I think this is better than that. These tournaments have much more meaning: you win one you’re in the Masters and you get FedEx Cup points.

On his idea for what he calls a “Pacific Swing”…

Sony Open in Hawaii - Round One

I would prefer to see fewer [tournaments] and have them further removed from the Tour Championship. Give people a bit of a break. I’ve proposed calling it the “Pacific Swing.” Maybe you play an event in Hawaii to start it off. Then you go over to Malaysia and China … add a tournament in Australia, make that an official event. Then come back in play another one in Hawaii … four of five tournaments in prime time.

On fan burnout…

BoredGolfFan

The other thing is you need to have fans miss it a little bit. Baseball counts down to when pitchers and catchers report; golf doesn’t really have that. You’ve pretty much got golf 50 weeks out of 52. It’s tough to ask people to think that every one of these things is important.

Some of the best events are out on the West Coast. But they’ve become watered down because the fields aren’t as good and guys are taking breaks. They play events in January right up against college football and the NFL playoffs. How are you going to get an audience?

On the FedEx Cup playoffs…

Shorten it to three playoff events. Four seems to be a lot and they need a break. I think they could tweak the format still. The points are mighty confusing. There’s going to be a year where a guy finishes 20-somethingth and wins the FedEx Cup. I don’t know that that’s going to look real good.

On how much we should expect the big names to play…

tigerWRX

Tiger’s a unique case in that there’s not that many guys who are going to play that little unless they play both tours. Given the way he prepared and contended a lot, it takes a lot out of you. There’s a lot of guys that play 25-to-30 events and they know that in 10 of them, they’re not going to be anywhere near their best.

I think ideally you’d like to see these guys play in the low 20s. You need them out there once or twice a month in the heart of the season — from January through September.

On the Tiger Woods-Sean Foley split…

FoleyTiger

Tiger clearly must have thought that there were times when he could have been hitting it well and wasn’t. He just got frustrated with not being able to hit the driver. I get the sense that he has strong respect for Foley, and he doesn’t want to say anything bad, but it just wasn’t working. He just couldn’t hit a fairway to save his life, and he’s got to be able to do that.

“Giving up all that fine-tuning.”

We’re not quite sure how much Tiger’s practicing: some of it’s human nature and some of it’s because he physically couldn’t. You’ve got these guys coming up behind him who are practicing and playing all the time. It’s tough to beat guys when you’re giving up all that fine-tuning. We’ve seen it with some of these guys who’ve won these fall events: more and more guys are prepared to win and can win.

On the rise of young talent…

SpiethFowlerWRX

Guys are ready more quickly. They’ve competed in big tournaments at a younger age through things like the AJGA. And then you’ve got these developmental tours. The Web.com Tour, that’s just like the PGA Tour except smaller purses and smaller galleries. And there are feeder tours to those tours: Canada, Latin America, China. You’re going to have people developing even sooner, getting more chances, and when they finally do get their cards, they’re way more seasoned, they’ve dealt with pressure more. And it’s still a numbers game where there are only so many guys who can make it.

Addressing slow play on Tour…

GolfBored

I think it’s a big deal. [The Tour’s] actions don’t suggest they think it’s a big enough deal. It’s been an ongoing problem for a long time.

One of the issues is field size. With two-tee starts, you’re going to have congestion on the golf course. When possible, they should go to places where they can play over two courses the first two days. After the cut, when you’re down to 70 or 80 guys, and there’s still pace of play issues, it comes down to a mindset.

I know there’s honors and who goes first, but why not wipe that out? Whoever’s done first, go to the next hole and tee off.

And the fine structure and the penalty structure aren’t severe enough. If you threaten them with stroke penalties, that will get their attention. I don’t think there should be as many warnings: one warning and then you’re getting a stroke penalty.

… and at the club level…

Something has to be done. It’s bad for the image of the game: amateurs mimic pros, and it filters into recreational golf. A lot of people don’t play because they think it takes too long. It’s a big fear that I have playing golf. I don’t have time for a five-hour round of golf. If I knew every round of golf would take three-and-a-half hours, I’d play more.

On what’s ailing the golf industry and what to do about it…

WRXcourseclosed

There are clearly issues with participation, although I do think the “doom and gloom” is going too far. I think some of it’s been overstated. One of the reasons things appear as they do is there’s probably too many golf courses. There’s too much supply. When there’s so much supply, and those courses aren’t filled, things look bad.

There are some good ideas being put forth about how to curb that…6-hole, 12-hole layouts, allowing people to play nine holes, encouraging them to play nine holes, designing courses so you can leave after six or 12. All of those things are good ideas.

The idea is to play. It shouldn’t be that you have to play 18 holes, or that you have to even keep score. I think we have way too much of a fascination with the medal score in the U.S. In the UK they play match play, they play stableford, they play foursomes. Alternate shot is a really neat way to play once in a while and it goes a lot faster. Obviously in stableford, after a bogey you pick up. A seven, eight, or nine on the scorecard can ruin the day; it shouldn’t.

For the average guy, there’s nothing wrong with picking up if you’ve made a double, moving on and enjoying it and not obsessing over it. I think that’s a big problem with the game.

On Tom Watson’s performance as Ryder Cup captain…

BobHarigGolfWRX

I’ve long held the view that the captain’s role is overstated in winning and in losing. Ultimately it’s about the players. In the big picture, this defeat was about not playing as well. Europe played very, very well. Tom Watson could have done everything absolutely perfect and they might have still lost.

But he did leave room for second-guessing. When you get beat like that in the foursomes, it leads to second-guessing pairings. And I don’t think that the whole “tough love” approach works in golf. It’s not football. Getting on somebody in golf isn’t going to lead to good golf. I’m not saying they need to be babied, but nurtured is maybe a word that fits. You’ve got to deal with the different personalities.

It was a dysfunctional situation. You pick Webb Simpson as one of your captain’s picks and you only play him once before Sunday? Not only thinking about pairings but knowing how to mix things up if things go wrong, I don’t think Watson was very good at that. Part of me feels really bad for him; you’re talking about a legend of the game.

On Phil Mickelson’s comments…

Phil Mickelson

I’m sorry; if Phil Mickelson makes your team you don’t sit him for an entire day. We can debate whether what Phil did on Sunday was the right thing, but you can certainly understand why he was upset based on what came out later. He clearly had strong motivation to do what he did.

Mickelson, he’s seen it all. He has a good sense of what works. Based on what came out about that Saturday night, Phil was trying to be a leader, he was trying to turn a negative into a positive. I think Phil has gotten exactly what he was looking for when he did that.

At the time, I wasn’t sure if it was calculated or if it was just frustration. It’s very clear to me now that he felt he had to do that that way to affect change. If he would have done it privately like many suggested—if he’d handled it behind closed doors—it might have just been another “Hey look, we lost the Ryder Cup. Who’s the next captain?”

There’s been an intense look at it now. I’m not sure the task force is the way to go, but I don’t think it can hurt. They’re not going to name a captain here in the next month like they normally do. They’re going to think about all the little things.

On how Tiger Woods will fare in 2015…

TigerWoods

It’s a huge mystery…more than at any point. More questions than when he came back from knee surgery. More questions than when he came back from the Achilles. This year has been a loss due to the injury. I don’t think we realized that he was never right, even the tournaments he played before the surgery, I think his back was bothering him and he compensated.

I think that a lot of us felt [the back troubles were behind him] when he came back last summer, that he had the surgery and everything was OK. It didn’t work out that way. Now they say it’s a different injury, but it’s still the back.

It’s very, very up in the air. You’ve got the added dilemma of him not having a swing coach: how much is that going to affect him? Let’s say he’s perfectly healthy. Let’s say he’s able to practice a lot. Well, how’s the golf swing? What kind of a golf swing is he going to have?

He’s got a double-whammy: He missed a lot of time due to injury and he has to hone a golf swing that he never really had in 2014, and now he doesn’t have the teacher that he’s been working with.

Looking ahead to 2015…

RoryMcilroyWRX

It’s going to be very interesting to see what happens with Tiger. What’s his health like? How much is he going to be able to play? Is he competitive?

I think there will be some interest in Phil. He’s going to turn 45. He went a whole year without winning. He’s still such a popular figure. He talks like someone who feels a lot of good golf is ahead, and he thinks he can win a U.S. Open and the career Grand Slam.

And then of course Rory: No. 1 in the world, coming off this great year, there’s going to be a ton of focus on him going to Augusta. Early in the season, if he struggles, then the pressure ratchets up, if he does win, then there’ll be even more interest with him going to Augusta. And he’s got that lawsuit going on.

I think those are the three big things. There are other stories, obviously, but I think in terms of overall interest, those are the three guys, with most of it on Tiger.

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GolfWRX Editor-in-Chief

12 Comments

12 Comments

  1. Mike Weill

    Nov 19, 2014 at 12:43 pm

    I play three times a week, I used to walk 9 holes Monday morning.
    The trouble is all the courses I regularly play only allow 9 holes before 8 am or after 2 pm in the winter, 1 pm in the summer.I am pushing 70.
    None of these courses allow riding 9 either except in these designated times.
    None of the courses reduced rates during the recession.
    So I see the courses not being flexible as the reason many people have given up playing.
    From Sunny Florida.

  2. DaveT

    Nov 19, 2014 at 12:20 pm

    I think everything you say about slow play is spot-on. The Tour should take it seriously, and apply penalties that will motivate faster play. Club and public course players do imitate the pros; if the pros play slow, our courses will play slow. And slow play is one of the big reasons [some] golf courses are not doing well.

    I disagree with most of what you say about the wraparound season. In trying changes in order to generate TV interest, the Tour is making a mistake. They lost my interest. The old format used to be about who is going to lose their card and who will be back next year. That was worth watching, if a little marginal. Now there’s no reason to watch. And the whole Fall season flies in the face of what you call “fan burnout”. Either drop the Fall season or let it be the end of the year (and do-or-die to qualify next year) instead of a wrap-around.

  3. richard king

    Nov 18, 2014 at 2:28 pm

    You’re a total idiot pat. How does it feel!!! Lolol

  4. richard king

    Nov 18, 2014 at 2:27 pm

    Pat you’re a head full of mush and a frustrated athlete. Sniveler, is term.

  5. Pat

    Nov 18, 2014 at 1:29 pm

    Harig is the biggest Tiger slurper of all. Never have I seen a grown man get on his knees and worship another human being like Harig does. Tiger is not God, he’s just an individual who was born with talent and happens to be a d-bag. It’s getting to the point where it’s pretty sad and pathetic. I thought journalism was supposed to be non-biased. I guess I was wrong.

  6. Daniel

    Nov 17, 2014 at 7:00 pm

    Send this article to the commissioner !!!!!

  7. Kevin

    Nov 17, 2014 at 5:33 pm

    If Tiger is healthy there is no reason to believe he won’t win 3 to 5 times again next year, and be on the leader board basically all of the time like he usually is. I get the feeling Rory should just let the lawsuit go. When he’s 50 and he looks back on whatever money he is arguing about now, I’ll bet it will seem insignificant to him. Hopefully in 2016 the US team will be full strength, with it’s best players playing, for the Ryder Cup, regardless of who is captain. A healthy Tiger, DJ, and Dufner could have made a big difference this time.

    • Pat

      Nov 18, 2014 at 1:25 pm

      And he will still fall short of Jack’s record for Majors won. Tiger is washed up and his PED use finally caught up to him resulting in all his recent injuries. But go ahead, put him on a pedestal and worship him like all Tiger’s fan boys do.

  8. Kyle

    Nov 17, 2014 at 5:24 pm

    Do people honestly buy the notion that there are a lot of up and comers? You have spieth and maybe a few others, Rory and Rickie are no longer up and coming, they are here. Other than that, there isn’t much talent like is publicized. Definitely no one that holds a candle to DJ, tiger, Rory, rose, etc. maybe people are trying to say it’s better now for marketing purposes?

    • Knobbywood

      Nov 18, 2014 at 9:58 am

      The talent pool is deeper now than ever… Do you really think there AREN’T up and comers all over the world? If not I don’t know why planet you are living on… I played with a kid who is 12 years old and shot 62 on a 7100 yd monster… There are up and comers everywhere

  9. RG

    Nov 17, 2014 at 5:22 pm

    Nice article Ben, keep up the good work!

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