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      In Naming a New Chief Executive, the U.S.G.A. Looks to the Women’s Game

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyIn Naming a New Chief Executive, the U.S.G.A. Looks to the Women’s GameWith the L.P.G.A., Mike Whan grew women’s golf. Now he’ll try to solve some of the sport’s most contentious debates: outrageous distances off the tee and a return to more traditional sites.Mike Whan with the L.P.G.A. in 2015. He will take over the U.S.G.A. sometime this summer.Credit…Chris O’Meara/Associated PressFeb. 17, 2021, 11:02 a.m. ETIn an imaginative decision for one of the most resolutely traditional organizations in American sports, the United States Golf Association announced Wednesday that its new chief executive would be Mike Whan, who has spent the last 11 years as the resourceful commissioner of the L.P.G.A. Tour.Whan, 56, will replace Mike Davis, the top executive at the U.S.G.A., which conducts the United States Open and 13 other national championships. Five months ago, Davis, a 30-year U.S.G.A. employee, revealed that 2021 would be his last year with the organization. In January, in a surprise, Whan announced his intention to leave the L.P.G.A.In an interview Tuesday, Whan said he called Davis before accepting the U.S.G.A.’s offer.“I said, you know me and you know the job, is this a bad idea?” Whan recalled. “Mike said, ‘Stop talking, you need to get into this job.’”Whan added: “I can stay in the game I love. I can have a seat that can make a real difference.”Stu Francis, the U.S.G.A. president, said Tuesday that he had been thinking about Whan as a possible Davis successor since Whan made a presentation to the association’s executive committee four years ago. Noting that the U.S.G.A., a nonprofit with annual revenues of roughly $225 million, invests in myriad golf initiatives and helps writes golf’s rule book, Francis called running the U.S.G.A. “a multifaceted job.” Of Whan, Francis added: “He has all the skill sets and has demonstrated those skill sets.”Whan, who will assume his U.S.G.A. duties at an unspecified date this summer, took over a struggling L.P.G.A. in 2010 and guided it through financial challenges, eventually expanded the tour from 24 events to 34 and nearly doubled the prize money. During the pandemic, when many tournaments were not held, Whan was able to preserve event sponsors, and the purses for the 18 tournaments the L.P.G.A. did host were not reduced.As L.P.G.A. commissioner, Whan has spent years in regular contact with leaders of golf’s governing bodies, including the U.S.G.A., the PGA Tour and the R&A, the organization that conducts the British Open.But at least in America, Whan will soon be the point man for a variety of issues facing golf, the thorniest of which is whether the sport’s leaders should enact new rules to inhibit the prodigious distances off the tee that can be achieved by technologically advanced golf balls and clubs. A recent report sponsored by the U.S.G.A. and the R&A, a co-partner overseeing the rule book, hinted at potential changes in equipment restrictions.Asked about the report on Tuesday, Whan said: “There’s little argument that we’ve known distance is a problem for a long time.” He added, “I think change is coming and needs to — how grand that change is has yet to be determined.”But Whan, who worked for Wilson Sporting Goods and TaylorMade Golf before joining the L.P.G.A., said there would still be room for innovation in the vast golf equipment market.“I think all the people that hear about change think, ‘Oh, no, it’s over, they’re going to put a governor on and everybody’s going to have all the same distance,’” he said. “Nobody has any interest in doing that to either the game or the people that make the game exciting.”Whan will also be central to ascertaining which courses will be selected as U.S.G.A. championship sites, particularly when it comes to the U.S. Open and the U.S. Women’s Open. Some of the most controversial decisions in Davis’s tenure stemmed from a desire to branch out from an established, if unofficial, rotation of traditional sites for the association’s premier events. That led to the U.S. Open’s being played in largely untested venues like Chambers Bay in Washington State and Erin Hills in Wisconsin with, at best, mixed results.Lately, the U.S.G.A. has signaled its inclination to return to golf courses with a history of hosting the national golf championship, something endorsed by Francis and Whan.“You’re going to see much more of a locking in on traditional sites,” Francis said.Whan, who will be just the U.S.G.A.’s eighth chief executive, said players wanted the same thing. Cognizant that this year’s U.S. Women’s Open will be contested at the Olympic Club in San Francisco for the first time (it has hosted the U.S. Open five times), Whan said, “I can promise you right now there are players on the L.P.G.A. dreaming of Olympic.”Davis, who is leaving the U.S.G.A. to pursue his interest in golf course design, endorsed Whan’s selection.“I’ve had the pleasure of working with Mike Whan for many years, and I view him as a trusted, strategic leader who has a proven track record of building collaborative partnerships,” Davis said in a statement. “I know the U.S.G.A. will be in great hands, and I look forward to partnering with Mike to ensure a smooth and successful transition.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Tiger Woods Announces He Had a Fifth Back Operation

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTiger Woods Announces He Had a Fifth Back OperationWoods, 45, expects to miss at least the first two months of the year on the PGA Tour.Tiger Woods at the PNC Championship last month. He said in a social media post Tuesday that he had experienced discomfort during the tournament.Credit…Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressJan. 19, 2021Updated 9:18 p.m. ETTiger Woods, whose transcendent golf career nearly ended prematurely because of multiple back operations, has undergone another procedure on his spine.Woods, a 15-time major champion, announced Tuesday on social media that he recently had his fifth back operation in the past seven years and indicated that he did not expect to return to the PGA Tour before March.The operation was his fourth microdiscetomy and his first back surgery since a spinal fusion in April 2017 that allowed him to make a triumphant comeback to the game he had long dominated.pic.twitter.com/YD0IQbF2K4— Tiger Woods (@TigerWoods) January 19, 2021
      Woods, 45, said he would miss two events near his childhood home in Southern California — the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in the final week of January, and the Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club starting Feb. 18. He is the honorary host of the Genesis Invitational.Woods said he started feeling discomfort after the PNC Championship in December, when he laughed his way around the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club in Orlando, Fla., as he played alongside his 11-year-old son, Charlie.According to the social media post, his recent procedure removed a pressurized disc fragment that was pinching a nerve. The doctors deemed the surgery a success, according to the post, which also said Woods was expected to make a full recovery.“I look forward to begin training and am focused on getting back out on Tour,” Woods said in the statement.According to Kevin McGuire, the section chief for the Center for Pain and Spine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire, Woods probably had what is called “adjacent segment disease,” which occurs when nearby discs deteriorate as they compensate for limitations at the fusion site.“Professional athletes are different human beings, in my opinion, than the rest of us mortals,” said McGuire, who was not involved in Woods’s treatment. “If the rest of us swung the golf club as many times as Tiger Woods did, most of us would get hurt, get injured, or have back problems. So professional athletes tend to come back fast — or, do come back faster.”Woods has contended with unpredictable back pain over the years, and his 2020 starts yielded just one top-10 finish, a tie for ninth in January at the Farmers Insurance Open. In mid-February of 2020, he became stiff and repeatedly grimaced throughout the final two rounds of the Genesis Invitational, where he shot an 11 over par and finished last among the golfers who made the cut.In the six majors he has played since his 2019 Masters victory, he has missed the cut three times, tied for 21st, tied for 37th and tied for 38th.In August 2019 Woods had a fifth arthroscopic procedure done on his left knee. Woods returned three months later in Japan and claimed his 82nd career victory, tying him atop the career PGA Tour wins list with Sam Snead.Because of the coronavirus pandemic, Woods had to wait until November to try to defend his Masters title. But he struggled trudging up and down the wet Georgia hills, the physical toll exacerbated by rain and limited autumn sunlight, which meant compressed tee times and little time for rest and recuperation. Woods finished tied for 38th, 19 shots behind the winner, Dustin Johnson.“No matter how much I push and ask of this body, it just doesn’t work at times,” Woods told reporters then.But Woods has become accustomed to making comebacks.“The classic line I give a lot of my patients is: ‘If you really enjoy something, go for quality rather than quantity,’” McGuire said.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Tiger Woods Mixes Golf and Family Once Again

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTiger Woods Mixes Golf and Family Once AgainNormally Woods tries to keep his private life separate from his career, but playing with his son Charlie in the PNC Championship was an emotional father-son bonding moment.“I’m just making sure Charlie has the time of his life,” Tiger Woods said Saturday, referring to his 11-year-old son. Credit…Mike Ehrmann/Getty ImagesDec. 20, 2020Updated 5:38 p.m. ETORLANDO, Fla. — As he does with the accessories in his golf bag, Tiger Woods neatly arranges his life in tidy compartments. His life as a high-profile golfer goes in one slot, his family goes in another and, like his favored chunky peanut butter and banana sandwiches and the rest of his luggage, he’d prefer to keep it all separated.When Woods made an exception this week, teaming up with his 11-year-old son, Charlie, at the PNC Championship, the results were perhaps predictably distinct.Charlie had a blast and Woods was a nervous wreck.The dynamic duo, as they were described by breathless television announcers, finished seventh at 20-under, five strokes behind the winning team of Justin Thomas and his father, Mike, who were grouped with the Woodses in the first round.But as far as Tiger Woods was concerned, this was one event where success was all about the details, not the digits.“I’m just making sure Charlie has the time of his life,” he said on Saturday.Woods’s father, Earl, who died in 2006, possessed a pride in his child’s precociousness with a golf club that led to Woods, 44, making his first television appearances and submitting to his first interviews before he started kindergarten.Because of Woods’s accomplishments, which include 15 major titles, Charlie has also grown up in the spotlight, widely photographed and gawked at since birth. Over the past year, as his interests have shifted from soccer to golf, his swing has been scrutinized on the internet as if it contained the meaning of life.“This is a different world that we live in now,” Woods conceded. “Everyone has a phone, everyone has an opportunity to video, he’s been out there.”But it’s one thing to exist in a fishbowl and quite another to be dropped into the shark tank of a 36-hole televised competition featuring 20 teams in which major winners or Players champions are paired with family members in a scramble format.With Tiger and his cub in the mix, the low-key event became a major production, eclipsing the L.P.G.A.’s tour championship, held roughly 200 miles — and a distant universe of hype — away and won by the women’s world No. 1, Jin Young Ko. More than 200 people and multiple television cameras were gathered around the first tee to watch Charlie’s opening shot Saturday.Charlie Woods, playing from forward tees set up for him and octogenarians Gary Player and Lee Trevino, split the fairway with most of his drives and often placed his approaches inside his father’s efforts.Credit…Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated Press“A lot of people are trying to use him to build up, or write or talk about things,” Woods said. “Just making sure he’s able to have fun playing the game of golf.”Woods insisted that Charlie be excused from media interviews throughout the week. When he met with reporters, Tiger Woods’s usual facility with words escaped him. Many of his thoughts trailed off.“I’m trying to make sure Charlie has the right environment, that he’s sheltered and away from this,” Woods said Saturday while addressing a small group of reporters. “I do all of this so he can practice and play and enjoy the golf side of it.”On one hole during the first round, Woods spoke with Justin Thomas about how excruciating it was to want so badly for Charlie to play well but to be helpless to do anything but watch.Tiger Woods need not have fretted. Charlie, playing from forward tees set up for him and the octogenarians Gary Player, 85, and Lee Trevino, 81, split the fairway with most of his drives and often placed his approaches inside his father’s efforts.The opening round featured Charlie’s first-ever eagle on a par-5, which he took in stride until his excited dad squeezed a bashful smile out of him with a bear hug.“He hit some of the most incredible golf shots,” Woods said.In introducing the golf world to his son, Woods revealed the man behind the golfing machine. Woods, an 82-time PGA Tour winner who says he competes to win, repeatedly used the word “perfect” on Saturday to describe a round that ended with the Woodses trailing by four strokes.Woods can bore holes in his competitors’ games with a glare, but a few times over the weekend his eyes pooled with emotion as he talked about the father-and-son bonding opportunity the tournament provided.From his mannerisms to his mechanics, Charlie came across as a miniature version of his father. He seemed comfortable in the company of adults and well-schooled in golf’s etiquette, walking to every tee box with the club he was going to use in one hand and his teed ball in the other. He stayed out of the way when it wasn’t his turn and wasted no time hitting once over the ball.Tiger Woods, who said he constantly emphasizes having fun on the course and being “respectful,” beamed at the mention of Charlie’s good manners and said he had to share any credit with his ex-wife, Elin Nordegren, who showed up Sunday with their daughter Sam to watch Charlie play.Neither Thomas nor Woods expressed surprise at the quality shots that Charlie consistently produced. They’d seen them all when they practiced and played alongside him during the months when the tour was shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic.“I knew he was going to wow a lot of people,” Thomas said, adding, “The kid’s a gamer, he’s a grinder, he’s competitive.”Every afternoon when he was finished playing 18 holes, Charlie made a beeline for the range to hit more balls. During one post-round session, the children of another major winner were on the range not far from him. As they twirled and tossed their clubs like they were batons and cried out to get their parents’ attention, Charlie was a few yards away, quietly and methodically working his way through a bag of balls.The retired L.P.G.A. star Annika Sorenstam, a 10-time major winner, noticed that her 9-year-old son seemed enamored of Charlie and more enthusiastic about the game after watching him play.“When you see somebody your age and your size do what Charlie’s doing, it’s a little more inspiring to see what you can do,” Sorenstam said.Trevino crossed paths with Woods before the first round. “Now you know how your father felt,” he said he told him.Woods’s voice grew thick. “It’s unbelievable,” he replied.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More