Showing posts with label golf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label golf. Show all posts
Smoking casts its carcinogenic cloud over golf
Mike Bianchi
March 23, 2008
Remember the old rock 'n' roll song Smokin' In The Boys Room about the teenage juvenile delinquents who used to sneak into the school bathroom and puff away on cancer sticks?
"Smokin' in the boys' roomSmokin' in the boys' room. Now, teacher, I am fully aware of your rules,But everybody knows that smokin' ain't allowed in school."
The reason we bring this up is to point out how smoking may not be allowed in school, but for some unknown reason it's still allowed on the PGA Tour. Which seems almost unbelievable in this day and age when congressional intervention has forced all sports leagues to strengthen their drug-testing policies and start sending the right message to America's youth.
The PGA Tour will start testing for steroids in July, but before the Tour starts worrying about performance-enhancing drugs, shouldn't it first ban performance-detracting ones like nicotine?Congress has made a major issue about pro sports sending the wrong message when it comes to steroids, but what about pro golf sending the wrong message when it comes to lung cancer? Scientific fact: A relative handful of deaths have resulted from steroid abuse; hundreds of thousands die every year because of nicotine abuse."I don't think we have a problem with smokers," PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem said at last week's Arnold Palmer Invitational .”W e have some. We don't have many. . . . I don't think it's worth spending any energy on."
A few years ago, Finchem was similarly nonchalant when it came to mandatory drug-testing of golfers, but finally capitulated amid public pressure. Why there has not been more of an outcry about the Tour's tacit approval of smoking is harder to figure out than the World Golf Rankings.
Maybe it's just apathy – because Tiger Woods doesn't light up, nobody notices or cares. In fact, Tiger, the ultimate competitor, says he has no problem with tobacco on tour and even jokingly encourages cigarette-toking opponents like John Daly to, "smoke more."
Glad to know Tiger is concerned about the well-being of his fellow competitors. But even if you totally disregard the enormous health risks, smoking during competition just looks bad. How are we supposed to take golf seriously as a true "athletic" competition when pros are smoking while they're playing?
Here's all you need to know: Professional bowling doesn't allow its competitors to smoke during competition but professional golf does. Granted, bowling tournaments are held indoors, but it's still embarrassing for the PGA Tour.
Hey, if Finchem is going to allow cigarettes, why not set up a table at every hole so the golfers can have beer and pretzels, too?Seriously, what other professional sport do you know where an athlete is allowed to actually light up during competition? Can you imagine Eli Manning flicking his cigarette to the side just before taking a snap in the Super Bowl? Or Dwight Howard doing his Superman dunk with a Marlboro dangling from his lip? Or Barry Bonds puffing on a Pall Mall while rounding the bases after hitting No. 756?Such scenarios happen in golf all the time. In fact, it happened at the U.S. Open last year when Angel Cabrera not only smoked the field in the final round, but he also smoked about a dozen cigarettes.
"Some players use sports psychologists," Cabrera said then. "I smoke."Another smoker, Frank Licklighter II, when asked at the Arnold Palmer Invitational why he smoked during competition, deadpanned: "It keeps me from killing certain people."
Good line. Bad habit.
Just because a few golfers like Licklighter, Cabrera, Daly, Nick Price, etc., are addicted to nicotine doesn't mean they should be allowed to turn golf's fairways into tobacco road. This isn't the 1950s and '60s when smoking was an accepted part of golf and other sports.
Ben Hogan used to smoke two packs of unfiltered Chesterfield cigarettes per round. Sam Snead used to commercially endorse Lucky Strikes even though he detested smoking. And, of course, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus were chain smokers in their early days on the Tour.
But Arnie points out he stopped smoking on the golf course in 1962, the same year Jack also quit publicly puffing. Nicklaus told Golf Digest a few years ago that he stopped smoking on the golf course after watching a replay of a playoff with Arnie in the '62 U.S. Open -- a day when the two future legends turned Oakmont into Smokemont."We must have looked like two chimneys," Nicklaus said. "I never smoked again in public after that."Now here we are nearly a half-century later, and cigarettes are still allowed in a sport where Tiger Woods presents a chiseled, sculpted image of health and fitness.Then TV cameras flash to Daly swinging the golf club with a cigarette dangling from his mouth or Cabrera walking up the fairway at the U.S. Open enveloped in a carcinogenic cloud.Just like that, the image of golf as a legitimate athletic endeavor goes up in a puff of smoke.
Mike Bianchi
March 23, 2008
Remember the old rock 'n' roll song Smokin' In The Boys Room about the teenage juvenile delinquents who used to sneak into the school bathroom and puff away on cancer sticks?
"Smokin' in the boys' roomSmokin' in the boys' room. Now, teacher, I am fully aware of your rules,But everybody knows that smokin' ain't allowed in school."
The reason we bring this up is to point out how smoking may not be allowed in school, but for some unknown reason it's still allowed on the PGA Tour. Which seems almost unbelievable in this day and age when congressional intervention has forced all sports leagues to strengthen their drug-testing policies and start sending the right message to America's youth.
The PGA Tour will start testing for steroids in July, but before the Tour starts worrying about performance-enhancing drugs, shouldn't it first ban performance-detracting ones like nicotine?Congress has made a major issue about pro sports sending the wrong message when it comes to steroids, but what about pro golf sending the wrong message when it comes to lung cancer? Scientific fact: A relative handful of deaths have resulted from steroid abuse; hundreds of thousands die every year because of nicotine abuse."I don't think we have a problem with smokers," PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem said at last week's Arnold Palmer Invitational .”W e have some. We don't have many. . . . I don't think it's worth spending any energy on."
A few years ago, Finchem was similarly nonchalant when it came to mandatory drug-testing of golfers, but finally capitulated amid public pressure. Why there has not been more of an outcry about the Tour's tacit approval of smoking is harder to figure out than the World Golf Rankings.
Maybe it's just apathy – because Tiger Woods doesn't light up, nobody notices or cares. In fact, Tiger, the ultimate competitor, says he has no problem with tobacco on tour and even jokingly encourages cigarette-toking opponents like John Daly to, "smoke more."
Glad to know Tiger is concerned about the well-being of his fellow competitors. But even if you totally disregard the enormous health risks, smoking during competition just looks bad. How are we supposed to take golf seriously as a true "athletic" competition when pros are smoking while they're playing?
Here's all you need to know: Professional bowling doesn't allow its competitors to smoke during competition but professional golf does. Granted, bowling tournaments are held indoors, but it's still embarrassing for the PGA Tour.
Hey, if Finchem is going to allow cigarettes, why not set up a table at every hole so the golfers can have beer and pretzels, too?Seriously, what other professional sport do you know where an athlete is allowed to actually light up during competition? Can you imagine Eli Manning flicking his cigarette to the side just before taking a snap in the Super Bowl? Or Dwight Howard doing his Superman dunk with a Marlboro dangling from his lip? Or Barry Bonds puffing on a Pall Mall while rounding the bases after hitting No. 756?Such scenarios happen in golf all the time. In fact, it happened at the U.S. Open last year when Angel Cabrera not only smoked the field in the final round, but he also smoked about a dozen cigarettes.
"Some players use sports psychologists," Cabrera said then. "I smoke."Another smoker, Frank Licklighter II, when asked at the Arnold Palmer Invitational why he smoked during competition, deadpanned: "It keeps me from killing certain people."
Good line. Bad habit.
Just because a few golfers like Licklighter, Cabrera, Daly, Nick Price, etc., are addicted to nicotine doesn't mean they should be allowed to turn golf's fairways into tobacco road. This isn't the 1950s and '60s when smoking was an accepted part of golf and other sports.
Ben Hogan used to smoke two packs of unfiltered Chesterfield cigarettes per round. Sam Snead used to commercially endorse Lucky Strikes even though he detested smoking. And, of course, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus were chain smokers in their early days on the Tour.
But Arnie points out he stopped smoking on the golf course in 1962, the same year Jack also quit publicly puffing. Nicklaus told Golf Digest a few years ago that he stopped smoking on the golf course after watching a replay of a playoff with Arnie in the '62 U.S. Open -- a day when the two future legends turned Oakmont into Smokemont."We must have looked like two chimneys," Nicklaus said. "I never smoked again in public after that."Now here we are nearly a half-century later, and cigarettes are still allowed in a sport where Tiger Woods presents a chiseled, sculpted image of health and fitness.Then TV cameras flash to Daly swinging the golf club with a cigarette dangling from his mouth or Cabrera walking up the fairway at the U.S. Open enveloped in a carcinogenic cloud.Just like that, the image of golf as a legitimate athletic endeavor goes up in a puff of smoke.
A Turnkey Sports Poll asked more than 800 sports executives: "Which event is the most prestigious?"
SportsBusiness Journal
Masters..........41.8%
Super Bowl..........34.84%
World Series..........6.15%
Final Four..........4.92%
Kentucky Derby..........4.51%
Stanley Cup Finals..........2.46%
Indianapolis 500..........1.64%
Daytona 500..........0.82%
NBA Finals..........0.82%
U.S. Open tennis..........0.41%
More Americans Are Giving Up GolfPaul Vitello
Nytimes.com
HAUPPAUGE, N.Y. — The men gathered in a new golf clubhouse here a couple of weeks ago circled the problem from every angle, like caddies lining up a shot out of the rough.
“We have to change our mentality,” said Richard Rocchio, a public relations consultant.
“The problem is time,” offered Walter Hurney, a real estate developer. “There just isn’t enough time. Men won’t spend a whole day away from their family anymore.”
William A. Gatz, owner of the Long Island National Golf Club in Riverhead, said the problem was fundamental economics: too much supply, not enough demand.
The problem was not a game of golf. It was the game of golf itself.
Over the past decade, the leisure activity most closely associated with corporate success in America has been in a kind of recession.
The total number of people who play has declined or remained flat each year since 2000, dropping to about 26 million from 30 million, according to the National Golf Foundation and the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association.
More troubling to golf boosters, the number of people who play 25 times a year or more fell to 4.6 million in 2005 from 6.9 million in 2000, a loss of about a third.
The industry now counts its core players as those who golf eight or more times a year. That number, too, has fallen, but more slowly: to 15 million in 2006 from 17.7 million in 2000, according to the National Golf Foundation.
The five men who met here at the Wind Watch Golf Club a couple of weeks ago, golf aficionados all, wondered out loud about the reasons. Was it the economy? Changing family dynamics? A glut of golf courses? A surfeit of etiquette rules — like not letting people use their cellphones for the four hours it typically takes to play a round of 18 holes?
Or was it just the four hours?
Here on Long Island, where there are more than 100 private courses, golf course owners have tried various strategies: coupons and trial memberships, aggressive marketing for corporate and charity tournaments, and even some forays into the wedding business.
Over coffee with a representative of the National Golf Course Owners Association, the owners of four golf courses discussed forming an owners’ cooperative to market golf on Long Island and, perhaps, to purchase staples like golf carts and fertilizer more cheaply.
They strategized about marketing to women, who make up about 25 percent of golfers nationally; recruiting young players with a high school tournament; attracting families with special rates; realigning courses to 6-hole rounds, instead of 9 or 18; and seeking tax breaks, on the premise that golf courses, even private ones, provide publicly beneficial open space.
“When the ship is sinking, it’s time to get creative,” said Mr. Hurney, a principal owner of the Great Rock Golf Club in Wading River, which last summer erected a 4,000-square-foot tent for social events, including weddings, christenings and communions.
The disappearance of golfers over the past several years is part of a broader decline in outdoor activities — including tennis, swimming, hiking, biking and downhill skiing — according to a number of academic and recreation industry studies.
A 2006 study by the USTA, which has battled the trend somewhat successfully with a forceful campaign to recruit young players, found that punishing hurricane seasons factored into the decline of play in the South, while the soaring popularity of electronic games and newer sports like skateboarding was diminishing the number of new tennis players everywhere.
Rodney B. Warnick, a professor of recreation studies and tourism at UMass, said that the aging population of the United States was probably a part of the problem, too, and that “there is a younger generation that is just not as active.”
But golf, a sport of long-term investors — both those who buy the expensive equipment and those who build the princely estates on which it is played — has always seemed to exist in a world above the fray of shifting demographics. Not anymore.
Jim Kass, the research director of the National Golf Foundation, an industry group, said the gradual but prolonged slump in golf has defied the adage, “Once a golfer, always a golfer.” About three million golfers quit playing each year, and slightly fewer than that have been picking it up. A two-year campaign by the foundation to bring new players into the game, he said, “hasn’t shown much in the way of results.”
“The man in the street will tell you that golf is booming because he sees Tiger Woods on TV,” Mr. Kass said. “But we track the reality. The reality is, while we haven’t exactly tanked, the numbers have been disappointing for some time.”
Surveys sponsored by the foundation have asked players what keeps them away. “The answer is usually economic,” Mr. Kass said. “No time. Two jobs. Real wages not going up. Pensions going away. Corporate cutbacks in country club memberships — all that doom and gloom stuff.”
In many parts of the country, high expectations for a golf bonanza paralleling baby boomer retirements led to what is now considered a vast overbuilding of golf courses.
Between 1990 and 2003, developers built more than 3,000 new golf courses in the United States, bringing the total to about 16,000. Several hundred have closed in the last few years, most of them in Arizona, Florida, Michigan and South Carolina, according to the foundation.
(Scores more courses are listed for sale on the Web site of the National Golf Course Owners Association, which lists, for example, a North Carolina property described as “two 18-hole championship courses, great mountain locations, profitable, $1.5 million revenues, Bermuda fairways, bent grass, nice clubhouses, one at $5.5 million, other at $2.5 million — possible some owner financing.”)
At the meeting here, there was a consensus that changing family dynamics have had a profound effect on the sport.
“Years ago, men thought nothing of spending the whole day playing golf — maybe Saturday and Sunday both,” said Mr. Rocchio, the public relations consultant, who is also the New York regional director of the National Golf Course Owners Association. “Today, he is driving his kids to their soccer games. Maybe he’s playing a round early in the morning. But he has to get back home in time for lunch.”
Mr. Hurney, the real estate developer, chimed in, “Which is why if we don’t repackage our facilities to a more family orientation, we’re dead.”
To help keep the Great Rock Golf Club afloat, owners erected their large climate-controlled tent near the 18th green last summer. It sat next to the restaurant, Blackwell’s, already operating there. By most accounts, it has been a boon to the club — though perhaps not a hole in one.
Residents of the surrounding neighborhood have complained about party noise, and last year more than 40 signed a petition asking the town of Riverhead to intervene. Town officials are reviewing whether the tent meets local zoning regulations, but have not issued any noise summonses. Mr. Hurney told them he had purchased a decibel meter and would try to hire quieter entertainment.
One neighbor, Dominique Mendez, whose home is about 600 feet from the 18th hole, said, “We bought our house here because we wanted to live in a quiet place, and we thought a golf course would be nice to see from the window. Instead, people have to turn up their air conditioners or wear earplugs at night because of the music thumping.”
During weddings, she said: “you can hear the D.J., ‘We’re gonna do the garter!’ It’s a little much.”
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