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RBS is currently playing a little Architecture game with Jack Nicklaus.

GAME

Apparently you try and choose what holes Jack picked for a Dream 18 for THE Open Championship. There are five holes per choice, all from the Rota. This exaggerates the fallacy of choosing the best holes from many a course. One must choose holes that add up to a par of 72 and such schizophrenia ensues trying to match The Old Course with Carnoustie, Muirfield, Birkdale and Hoylake! What does all this say about Jack's sense of routing and its importance in designing a golf course?

(A LOT!) See Castle Pines, Muirfield Village and Sherwood, just for starters.

Anyway, the prize is worth trying to think like Jack. And that is really the key, it matters not a whit what you think, it matters what Jack thinks.

Tiger Knee Piece (from post-Masters surgery) is down a bit on this page

Something I have always wanted to point out

Jean Vandevelde was extremely unlucky in 1999.

Carnoustie

He did, indeed miss his drive (A pure block) to the right on the 72nd at Carnoustie (I know, I was less than 15 feet from him) and he is criticised for having hit 2 iron into the 72nd green. Lucky on the drive or unlucky? Certainly on the second shot he was incredibly unlucky.

He hit the railing from over 200 yards exactly the corrrect way to screw him, such is the fate of the rub of the green. An inch left or right and an entirely different outcome.

Try and hit that, Tiger!

Still Carnoustie is one of my very favorite golf courses on the planet that I have visited and I doubt it will ever be supplanted in my top 20. It is certainly in my top 10 right now.

Call this a teaser.

Famous Men Corner

It's not how you play that matters, it's how you handle how you play. Taken from Aldous Huxley: “Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you.”

As a gentleman in this case at Crail! BK, you're a good sport.

Conspiracy Corner or Not? The Tiger Woods Knee Story - What You Need to Know

Whenever Tiger Woods has knee surgery, it requires an opinion from me. There is this time yet again - to an Orthopedic professional - a great deal of mystery surrounding exactly what is going on with Tiger Woods left knee. Once again we are told that he had some cartilage work done. Don't ever forget that there are two kinds of cartilage in the knee the articular cartilage which is intimately attached to the ends of the bone that make the articular or joint surfaces and also the meniscus cartilage, that most like a chamfered washer which more perfectly make the articulation of the upper bone(Femur) to the lower bone (Tibia). There are two of these medial (inner) and lateral (outer). The knee which has a lateral meniscus reduced in mass is much more poorly tolerated than that on the medial side, especially when on the periphery. We don't know which or if either is the site of the work.

His previous surgery we are told he had fluid removed from around his ACL as well as cartilage work, again, not specified. This professionally makes no sense whatsoever. Clearly his handlers are minimizing just what is wrong with his knee. Articular cartilage shear can be mowed like the grass to reduce its impact on the knee. It does not grow like the grass however, eventually one runs out of it. Mr. Woods is a very valuable commodity to his sponsors and to the media, the obsfucation is of little surprise to me.

The early swing component for Mr. Woods that had him hitting against an internally rotated and extended (turned in and straightened) left knee may very well be responsible for his knee woes but certainly has caused the continued problem. The idea of that sort of swing is to allow one to flail wholeheartedly at the ball with reduced chance of lateral translation (sliding). The knee does not like to be loaded in this fashion and I don't recommend this move to anyone who wants his knee to hold up. It can lead to ACL partial tears (there is no such thing as a partial tear), stretching of the posterior-lateral capsule - a most important and poorly recognized laxity, even by experienced OS - and joint cartilage shear.

If Mr. Woods has a condition called Osteochondritis Dessicans (Of the lateral aspect of the medial femoral condyle, certainly not inconsistent with the straight knee flailing mode), it could be just a matter of how long will his knee hold up, even though he has abandoned that particualar flawed swing method. Couple this with an ACL deficiency of any kind on a left knee and it is not a great combo - add in the posterior-lateral corner laxity and you might not have a very happy knee. Certainly not for very long.

The continued need for his left knee to have repeated surgeries is leading me to further believe that the articular cartilage is the source of the problem requiring cartilage work. He is a world-class athlete so he will do well, that is 3/4 of the battle, however if indeed he has O.D. and / or articular cartilage shear, it could affect his career no matter what he and his team do. No surprise that the story has so much spin as told in very tightly controlled, non-informational press releases as we are subjected to. He may know what his last rehabilitation program was but welcome to a new one. I'm guessing 4-6 weeks is optimistic.

At least we are done with the grand slam rubbish for the year, but we are bombarded with the triplets: woulda, coulda and shoulda. Now we have the reaason - the left knee which caused him pain (I really doubt pain was the problem, but most laymen relate best to pain) but more importantly functional alteration. Maybe woulda, coulda shoulda had the knee surgery in the off-season rather than much more urgently than admitted two days after failing to win the Mahsters.

Much of the media has been ready to crown Tiger the King from the very start, but we now have a new wrinkle that keeps deepening. My guess is that Tiger Woods will one day retire from competitive golf. I'll take the Ladbroke odds for less than two weeks before the next knee surgery when he does retire.

This week we've seen Byron Nelson's eleven straight and the calendar (True) Grand Slam odds just change.

Arthroscopic surgery to remove fluid from around the ACL - hmmmm. Sounds like an ACL deficient knee to me.

As an update, it has been made aware to me from Geoff Shackelford's fine site that Tim Finchem expects 5-10 years of Senior (Champion's) Tour golf from Tiger after regualr competition. I'll take the odds on that right now that we'll never see Tiger give a rodent's derriere about any Senior title except perhaps the USGA Open so that he can increase the total of USGA Championships that he will have won to an ungodly record total.

To be more specific, I'll give really long odds right now that we'll never see Tiger Woods in something as fine but undistinguished as the very well run Commerce Bank Championship at the Eisenhower Red on Long Island (I'll have some from there pretty soon). Mr. Finchem, I want to share that pipe in your pocket the next time I need a dose of optimism.

the redandoc

Currently in Architecture

Kingsley Club is still under construction

Plainfield photos are up, more history and data coming.