Tiger Woods' $54.5 Million Mortgage on Jupiter Island Mansion (Docs)
by Ryan Ballengee on Sep 2, 2010 10:35 AM EDT
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Waggle Room has obtained the public filing made on Tiger Woods' behalf to register a $54.5 million mortgage on the Jupiter Island estate already under construction. In documents signed on August 25 by Woods' financial brawn Chris Hubman, the note covers three plots of land for which Woods has previously filed deeds for in Florida court.
Outside of the outlandish sum of money, there are only a few other points of interest. First is the payback period: 5 years. At current mortgage rates of 4.5% percent, that amortizes to a monthly bill of nearly $1.02 million. Also, the three plots at Sand Turtle have a potential plot in between them - perhaps the space between a guest house and the main quarters.
Finally - and perhaps most interesting - is the documents were returned to Elin's representation, presumably for approval of the transaction.
WaggleRoom.com: Tiger Woods' $54.5 Million Mortgage
The filing was made two days after Woods and Nordegren made their divorce public in a Panama City court. According to documents filed, though, a divorce settlement was reached and signed on July 3, during the AT&T National.
With deeds already recorded in Woods' name for these plots, it is likely Woods is using this mortgage to free up cash. For what purpose - paying off Elin, sustaining his lifestyle, something else entirely - is unknown.
Golf Channel to Broadcast Nationwide Tour Without Announcers
by Ryan Ballengee on Sep 2, 2010 9:22 AM EDT
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Remember that experiment when an NFL game was broadcast in its entirety without announcers? And how huge of a failure it was? Well, it's never been tried in golf before, and Golf Channel thinks it's about time to give it a run.
Our pal Jerry Foltz shared the news last night on Twitter, and then I e-mailed him to chat about it some more.
Here's the low down: on September 18, Golf Channel will broadcast the third round of the Nationwide Tour's Boise Open without an announce crew - at least in the traditional sense.
Stephanie Sparks and Glen Parkin will conduct interviews during the back nine on a couple of holes where there is always a log jam. (Exploiting slow play for better coverage? I like that.) Foltz and Curt Byrum will be in the booth, responding to viewer tweets and e-mails.
All shot and bio info about players and caddies will be done via graphics. A lot of the story will be told by players and caddies, as Golf Channel is bringing in a ton of extra field microphones to pick up as much inside the ropes chatter as possible.
Jerry said he thinks it's a pretty cool idea, and I have to agree with him as a one-off. For as much as any of us complain about certain golf broadcasters (Johnny Miller), they are an integral part of making golf come alive.
Cheating: The Snake In The Garden of Golf
by Old Man Par on Sep 1, 2010 8:13 PM EDT
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Someone taking shortcuts and cheating on the golf course deliberately irritates me no end. It doesn’t matter if it is a Sunday foursome playing out a dollar Nassau or if it is a major sectional championship, it’s just wrong. If sports are the one place on the planet where fairness and fair play are supposedly real, the guys who cheat wantonly are the snakes in that Garden of Eden.
I am not talking about an honest mistake. We all make ‘em from time to time, and let’s be honest with ourselves: none of us will ever walk across a water hazard. No, I am talking about guys who know what they are doing, do it anyway and then smile and sign their scorecard as if they hadn’t done a thing wrong.
Long September: A Look at Paula Creamer's 2010 Calendar
by Ryan Ballengee on Sep 1, 2010 8:00 PM EDT
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Like a number of American celebrities and athletes, Paula Creamer has products and endorsements that she does abroad which are not seen or available in the United States. In the case of her 2010 calendar which is only sold in Japan, that's a total crock of crap.
So, how long do I have to wait to turn the page?
The Stats Project, Volume 2: Tight Pin Ratio
by Ryan Ballengee on Sep 1, 2010 4:24 PM EDT
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If you ever get the chance when you go to a tour event, get a copy of the pin sheet. It'll tell you for each round how many paces on and from the side a certain pin is. It's measured in paces, but basically is yards. Often times, the pins are really tight when the money is made.
It's important to be able to measure how close a player gets relative to the pin position, not to the hole. Certain pins are more confusing or intimidating than others, so making a comparison of being six feet away from the hole isn't necessarily meaningful. Hence, a comparison against the pin and the field playing that specific pin might help.
Enter: Tight Pin Ratio
The idea is basically to perform a ratio comparison between the space around the pin - paces on and away - with the circle that would be drawn through the ball, centered around the pin.
Obviously, the closer the ratio is to zero is better because you are in a closer space. This stat doesn't account for whether a player goes long or short of the pin, but studies indicate that positioning does not traditionally matter.
But being able to hit it close to the pin doesn't mean anything if you can't roll it. That's the whole point of this statistic. If a player can stick it close, but can't convert inside of 15 feet, then they won't win. Conversely, players that drain one or two bombs per week might just do enough to win a tournament. While those bombs are way more rare than fans root for, with proper timing, they can be huge game changers.
The idea with Tight Pin Ratio is to show who's putting it close AND on the putting surface. Coupled with other stats, we can build the profile of a complete player.
LPGA: Investigation of Ahn/Chung Remains Private
by Ryan Ballengee on Sep 1, 2010 2:16 PM EDT
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Yesterday, Golfweek's Beth Ann Baldry did some reporting to follow up on the LPGA's effort to look into the backstory behind the disqualifications of Shi Hyun Ahn and Il Mi Chung at last week's CN Canadian Women's Open.
Baldry was able to get thoughts from Chung and her caddie, but nothing from Ahn. She also independently confirmed that Chung spoke with LPGA officials on Monday.
Seeking to find out if Ahn had spoken with the Tour, Waggle Room contacted LPGA Tour spokesman David Higdon. He said, "We are not providing any details on our process of review."
He reiterated that both Ahn and Chung did eventually seek out rules officials for their punishment.
"One thing that is clear is that both players called the penalty on themselves and as a result, both players were disqualified. They admitted their mistake and accepted the penalty, so the Rules of Golf were adhered to."
When Spectating Becomes a Major Problem
by Ryan Ballengee on Sep 1, 2010 12:56 PM EDT
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Chambers Bay got the 2010 US Amateur practically sight unseen because of its stunning potential as a true American-style links golf course. Like Whistling Straits, it was molded with heavy machinery, imported dirt/sand, and terraformed into an environment very much different than its original state. (Can't say natural since Chambers was a quarry before a course.)
Similarly designed, each had comparable challenges for spectators looking to catch a glimpse of the action. As Geoff Shackelford notes, the number of spectator injuries went un(der) reported during the PGA Championship. Mostly ankle and knee injuries, and mostly minor, but injuries nonetheless did play a part in the spectator experience at Whistling Straits.
It appears that's again the case with Chambers Bay. One tournament official called the dune surfaces "like ice." Climbing the dunes will be a challenge at Chambers. They also prevent fans from having great intimacy with the course. The USGA will try to mitigate that in five years by constructing hordes of grandstands which will offer multiple hole views and try to keep people stationary on the property.
There's a big problem with that approach, though. Going to a major venue where fans are expected - and not merely invited - to sit still is a big risk. Golf fans love to follow the leader, and if that is a trying task on the weekend at the '15 Open, the major feeling in person and on television is somewhat diminished.
A second, smaller problem is the erection of a slew of grandstands will take away from the aesthetic charm of the course. With fewer spectators for the US Am, Chambers Bay looked amazing on television. Viewers could see the course for what it was - brown and beautiful. While not-so-secretly making the field guinea pigs for an Open many in the Am field will play in a handful of years, Mike Davis and company appear to have figured out how to play Chambers as a fair test while maintaining the rugged beauty that makes the setting so appealing in the first place.
If fans are left to sit still and take in just part of the property, the real star of the US Open could become just a cameo in the film.
The reasonable solution is to limit ticketing to the 2015 US Open. Chambers Bay does not appear prepared to handle 40,000+ spectators. Honestly, it looks like 20,000 was a good number - less than the crowds expected for Merion in 2013.
It's reasonable for fans and keeping the Ace bandage people from building a sprain clinic on top of a dune, but not good for the USGA bottom line. The Open makes the year for the Far Hills folk. They could jack up ticket prices to get more bang for the buck per customer. They could do their best to create and hide multiple tiers of hospitality tents in the hopes of keeping more people sauced and in place to avoid injuries. (Frankly, most people in the hospitality tent don't go for golf. They go for schmoozing, which is a-ok in a tent.) But there needs to be a way to accommodate fans who want to traverse Chambers Bay.
The USGA certainly reached a reasonable conclusion for the playing conditions in Tacoma, but we'll need to see what they were able to do for the thousands of peering eyes that will descend on the former mill in 2015.
Phil Mickelson: Rules Czar?
by Ryan Ballengee on Sep 1, 2010 11:47 AM EDT
in Pro Golf
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Phil doesn't make the rules, and maybe that's why he has found gripes with several of them.
Mickelson exploited the USGA and PGA Tour settlements with Karsten Manufacturing to play wedges with non-compliant-but-approved-for-play grooves earlier in the year. His mockery/protest of the grooves regulations led to an agreement by all parties to permanently close the loophole.
Just last week, Mickelson went on the offensive (and, as reader em66 points out, to bat for his sponsor Barclays) about the ridiculous notion of disqualifying players that fail to make their pro-am tee time on the dot. This week, the Tour announced a suspension of that rule for the remainder of 2010 - almost surely leading to a review and change of the rule for 2011.
It seems like Mickelson is selective, though, in the rules he chooses to pounce upon. He went after the grooves issue primarily because the USGA rejected grooves which he and Callaway submitted to the rulemaking body because they violated the spirit of the grooves rule. Lefty tackled the pro-am rule because (a) he is a great player and always pulled into them and (b) he had his own exemption from the rule, thus seeing it as lacking teeth.
Nothing from Mickelson on Dustin Johnson's bunker situation, even after so many pros came out in support of his interpretation of that clump of dirt and sand.
Lefty is silent on the "designated tournaments" concept quietly working its way through iterations before it is implemented.
Like it or not, Mickelson can carry out his vendettas in a way that will get him the result he wants. The methods may be very public, but that's often how things get done in golf. Quiet is the norm. Under the breath comments are expected. But when someone makes a big, loud stink about something, that's when things change.
So, what will Phil do next?
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