Monthly Archives: April 2008

It’s time for The Masters

Posted on by
Reply

Augusta National Scorecard3 It’s the week of The Masters golf tournament, so I’m passing along a copy of the Augusta National scorecard that my late father used when he shot a cool 99 at the course back in the mid-1970’s. The weather forecast for the tournament is looking a bit dicey on Saturday and Sunday.

Golf course design consultant and golf blogger extraordinaire Geoff Shackelford is doing an outstanding job at GolfWorld of organizing the media pieces and blog posts about the tournament — here are his Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and the weekend reports. And he is even finding time to blog a bit as this post decries what has become of the Masters par-3 tournament. Check back each day of the week as Geoff will provide the most comprehensive launching pad of links relating to the tournament. The Wall Street Journal’s very good golf writer, John Paul Newport, is also blogging the tournament here.

Meanwhile, golf author and blogger Daniel Wexler provides this entertaining post on the ten best golfers who never won the Masters and this interesting hole-by-hole analysis of how the changes to Augusta National’s back nine have altered  Augusta National Scorecard4 the shot-making options that course architects Bobby Jones and Alister McKenzie emphasized in designing the venerable layout. He concludes:

So in the end, is this present incarnation a better nine than existed in the beginning?  From the perspective of keeping modern golfers from going low, absolutely – plus the 11th, 12th, 13th and 15th remain, altered or not, among the most exciting holes in the history of the game.  The problem is that the addition of rough and trees does not add (or even complement existing) strategy; it simply makes it harder for the golfer to post a good score.  This may salve the egos of present-day club leaders, but re-reading this column’s opening quote, and considering that it was final-nine drama – the rapid-fire eagles, bogeys and “others” – that used to make the Masters so utterly unique, I keep finding myself wondering:

What’s wrong with great scores?

Finally, the Masters has been a frequent topic on this blog, so the following are a few Masters-related posts from over the years:

Ken Venturi and Arnold Palmer’s little snit over that embedded ball at the 1958 Masters.

Phil Mickelson wins his first Masters in 2004 and Masters’ expert Dan Jenkins puts it all in perspective.

Remember Martha Burk?

Read about some of Dan Jenkins’ favorite Masters moments and how he "birdied his bypass." Also, don’t miss this post in which Jenkins describes Chris DiMarco’s putting grip and what Mickelson and Tiger Woods were saying to each other as Mickelson helped Woods into his fourth green jacket during the 2005 awards ceremony.

Culture shock — John Daly on the Augusta National driving range.

A golfing Zimbabwe (see also here) and a salute to the King.

A fellow Iowa native makes good at The Masters.

Good Travis Street Eats

Posted on by
1

breakfastclub Look at what street is number two in Good Magazine’s seven Tastiest American Streets for good restaurants.

Enjoying John Adams

Posted on by
1

john adams My son Cody and I have been thoroughly enjoying each Sunday night episode of the HBO mini-series John Adams, which is based upon David McCullough’s brilliant biography of Adams. Given the extraordinary talents, troubling contradictions and fascinating relationships among the pivotal leaders of the American revolutionary era — Adams, Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, Franklin and Burr, among others — I have always wondered why some enterprising filmmaker hadn’t made a first-rate movie about the era. John Adams producer Tom Hanks should be commended for pulling it off in a splendid manner. Rebecca Cusey’s favorable review of the mini-series is here.

My vote for the book upon which the next movie of this era should be based — Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton (Penguin Press 2004). Two other excellent recent books on this era are Jay Winik’s The Great Upheaval (Harper 2007) and Joseph Ellis’ American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic (Knopf 2007).

Acupuncture or fake acupuncture?

Posted on by
6

acupuncture 040608This Respectful Insolence blog post reports on yet another in an increasingly long line of medical studies that demonstrate that acupuncture is nothing more than an elaborate and fancy placebo. In this particular study involving patients in "true" acupuncture and "fake" acupuncture protocols, patients in the sham acupuncture group improved more than patients in the "true" acupuncture group.

My conclusion? On one hand, if you stick pins in people who are complaining about something, then some of them will eventually quit complaining. On the other hand, if you take pins out of some people who were previously complaining, then some of them will also stop complaining.

A brief encounter at the SHO driving range

Posted on by
Reply

JIm Hardy 040608 johndalyteeingof 040608 After spending a delightful Friday morning watching Phil Mickelson navigate the back nine during the second round of the Shell Houston Open, my entourage and I grabbed a quick lunch and then headed out to the Redstone Golf Club driving range to watch the players with afternoon tee times prepare for their rounds.

A few minutes after we arrived, 2007 PGA Teacher of the Year and Houston resident Jim Hardy appeared on the range to watch his longtime student, Scott McCarron, warm up for his round. Hardy helped McCarron revive his professional golf career in the mid-1990’s after he had completely lost confidence in his swing. Hardy has helped resurrect the careers of several other PGA Tour pros in a similar manner.

Meanwhile, a few spots down the range from Hardy and McCarron, the mercurial John Daly — who was playing the SHO on a sponsor’s exemption because he has become a shadow (see also here) of the world class golfer that he used to be — began warming up for his round. In between drags on an ever-present cigarette as well as friendly chatter with caddies and other practicing players, Daly somewhat listlessly hit a few wedges and then a few long irons before wailing away with his driver. The man can still hit the ball out of sight.

As Daly began hitting his driver, McCarron finished his practice session and Hardy had a few final words with him. McCarron then left for his tee time and Hardy strolled down the range, stopping 20 yards or so behind Daly. With arms folded, Hardy silently stood watching Daly hit practice drives. I’m not sure that Daly even noticed Hardy watching.

A few minutes later, Daly tossed his driver to his caddy and trudged toward the golf cart that would take him to the 10th tee for his tee time. Hardy walked to the putting green and began working with another player on his putting.

After seven holes of his round, Daly withdrew from the tournament with a balky back that I’m sure wasn’t helped by the chilly rain and 20 degree temperature drop that occurred Friday afternoon. However, in nine tournaments this season, Daly has now missed four cuts, pulled out of another tournament with a rib injury and was disqualified from the Arnold Palmer Invitational because he blew his pro-am tee time. This on top of Daly’s unofficial PGA Tour record of six withdrawals in 2007 and his 581st World Golf ranking coming into the SHO.

The sad reality is that probably even Jim Hardy can’t help John Daly now.

The NY Times discovers that Houston

Posted on by
1

houston_skyline 040408is a pretty darn diverse place.

Catching up with Bill James

Posted on by
Reply

Bill James 042208 The beginning of the Major League Baseball season is a good time to check in with Clear Thinkers favorite, Bill James, the father of sabermetric analysis of baseball. Steve Dubner over at the Freakonomics blog recently provided James with this question-and-answer forum and, as usual, James’ observations on baseball are insightful and entertaining. For example:

Q: Using various statistics over a player’s lifetime, and comparing them to “league norms,” is it possible to determine which players may have used steroids?

A: Absolutely not, no. The problem is that many different causes can have the same effects. If a player used steroids, this could cause his home run total to explode at an advanced age — but so could weight training, Lasix surgery, better bats, playing in a different park, a great hitting coach, or a good divorce. It is almost always impossible to infer specific causes from general effects.

Q: Can you tell us about a time when you thought numbers were misleading and why?

A: I would say generally that baseball statistics are always trying to mislead you, and that it is a constant battle not to be misled by them. If you want something specific — pitchers’ won-lost records. And if you want a specific pitcher, Storm Davis, 1989.

For the record, Davis posted a 19-7 record with the Oakland A’s in 1989 while posting a pedestrian 4.36 ERA and giving up 8 more runs that season than a National League-average pitcher would have given up pitching in the same number of innings. Needless to say, a National League-average pitcher in 1989 did not have a 19-7 record. Here’s another of James’ interesting observations:

Q: Generally, who should have a larger role in evaluating college and minor league players: scouts or stat guys?

A: Ninety-five percent scouts, five percent stats. The thing is that — with the exception of a very few players like Ryan Braun — college players are so far away from the major leagues that even the best of them will have to improve tremendously in order to survive as major league players — thus, the knowledge of who will improve is vastly more important than the knowledge of who is good. Stats can tell you who is good, but they’re almost 100 percent useless when it comes to who will improve.

Read the entire post.

It’s 2008 Shell Houston Open Week

Posted on by
Reply

1E2 Fifth Hole Look back better Following on this post from a couple of weeks ago, this week’s Shell Houston Open at Redstone Golf Club has its best field in years (previous posts here), which includes the following top 25 players in the World Golf Rankings: Phil Mickelson (2), Steve Stricker (4), defending champion Adam Scott (5), The Woodlands’ K.J. Choi (7), Geoff Ogilvy (11), Padraig Harrington (12), Angel Cabrera (17), Aaron Baddeley (18), Trevor Immelman (25). Other popular notables in the field include 2003 champ Fred Couples, Houston’s Steve Elkington, Texans Chad Campbell and Justin Leonard, Davis Love III, Jose Maria Olazabal, The Woodlands’ Jeff Maggert and Argentinean hot-shot Andres Romero. For a non-major and non-Tiger event, 10 of the top 25 in the World Golf Rankings and three of the top five provides a very sporty field.

Started in 1922, the Houston Open is tied with the Texas Open as the third oldest non-major championship on the PGA Tour behind only only the Western Open (1899) and the Canadian Open (1904). This is the third Houston Open to be played on the Tournament Course at Redstone Golf Club and the sixth event overall at Redstone, which hosted its first three Houston Opens on the club’s Jacobson-Hardy Course while the Tournament Course was being built. This is the SHO’s second year of being played the week before The Masters and, despite the tradition of some of golf’s all-time greats not to play the week before major championships, the strong SHO field this year is an encouraging boost for a tournament that has struggled generating quality fields ever since leaving The Woodlands’ TPC Course after the 2002 tournament. Although the Houston Golf Association promotes the tournament with players by grooming Redstone’s Tournament Course in a manner similar to Augusta National, the Tournament Course is actually a flat-land course that bears little resemblance to the hilly venues of Augusta.

The following are several posts from over the years that will give you a flavor for the SHO:

The Wall Street Journal’s Enron embarrassment

Posted on by
Reply

Emshwiller033108 In anticipation of the oral argument on Wednesday in New Orleans on former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling’s appeal of his criminal conviction, don’t miss this Larry Ribstein post on Wall Street Journal Enron reporter John Emshwiller’s tardy realization that Skilling may just have legitimate grounds for reversal of his conviction and that the Enron Task Force’s record is not what its sycophants crack it up to be. This comes from Emshwiller after his newspaper last year characterized the Enron Task Force as having "a good record overall."

I can’t improve upon Professor Ribstein’s post regarding the irony of the nation’s leading business newspaper just now realizing that the corporate criminal case of the decade was badly mishandled. However, even before the Lay-Skilling trial, it was clear that the WSJ’s coverage of Enron was open to serious questions (see also here). That the newspaper continues to soft pedal coverage of wide-ranging evidence of serious prosecutorial misconduct in the Enron-related criminal cases reflects a troubling blind spot. Even in the current article, Emshwiller is less than forthright in assessing what is truly going on in the Skilling appeal regarding the Fastow interview notes:

Normally, defense attorneys aren’t allowed to see the raw notes of Federal Bureau of Investigation interviews with government witnesses. But Mr. Skilling’s defense team, led by Daniel Petrocelli, sought them anyway, and the Fifth Circuit agreed to order the federal government to turn over the notes.

Emshwiller fails to explain that the Fifth Circuit granted the Skilling team’s motion to obtain the raw notes because the Enron Task Force took the highly unusual step of providing the Lay-Skilling defense team a "composite summary" of the Form 302 ("302s") interview reports that federal agents prepared in connection with their interviews of former Enron CFO and chief Skilling accuser, Andrew Fastow. Those composites claimed that the Fastow interviews provided no exculpatory information for the Lay-Skilling defense, even though Fastow’s later testimony at trial indicated all sorts of inconsistencies.

In point of fact, the process of taking all the Fastow interview notes or draft 302s and creating a composite is offensive in that it allowed the prosecution to mask inconsistencies and changing stories that Fastow told investigators as he negotiated a better plea deal from the prosecutors over time. Likewise, the Task Force’s apparent destruction of all drafts of the individual 302s of the Fastow interviews in connection with preparing the final composite is equally troubling. Traditionally, federal agents maintain their rough notes and destroy draft 302s. However, in regard to the Fastow interviews, what turned out to be the draft 302s were probably not "drafts" in the traditional sense. They were probably finished 302s that were deemed “drafts” when the Task Force prosecutors decided to prepare their highly unusual composite summary of the 302s.

Meanwhile, while manipulating Fastow’s story, Task Force prosecutors were also preventing other exculpatory evidence from being introduced at trial on behalf of Skilling and Lay by taking the unprecedented step of fingering over 100 unindicted co-conspirators in the Lay-Skilling case (see also here) and implicitly threatening those co-conspirators with indictment if they testified on behalf of Skilling and Lay at trial. 

None of the foregoing is explained in Emshwiller’s article. Regardless of what happens in the Skilling appeal, the WSJ has some deep soul-searching to do regarding its coverage of the aftermath of Enron’s demise. Engaging in media myths and morality plays regarding business interests is bad enough. Ignoring the abuse of the government’s overwhelming prosecutorial power to levy a life sentence on an executive who created enormous wealth elevates poor judgment in business reporting to a much more troubling level. 

Update: Larry Ribstein comments further here, while Ellen Podgor has a pre-appellete argument post for the Skilling appeal here. The Chronicle’s Kristen Hays, who has done the best job in the mainstream media of covering the latest developments in the Skilling appeal, previews the oral argument here.