The Dark Side of the Moon

The whole business of doling out handicaps was going to be a bit of dicey business- this was one of life's little inevitabilities- not quite like death and taxes- but something like that...


Elder K and Elder Statesman (RL) had tracked their golf scores in their other golf lives- but very few if any other members of the tour had ever engaged in that process. Jackie was confident with only 4 handicaps he had set even into week 8 (event 4). He had to feel pretty good about Peter's, Roy's, John's, and his own handis- because he had played enough golf with this subgroup of players in his lifetime to reasonably predict their relative scores. The only member of this group that got screwed was Peter. Over the course of 2 dozen or more rounds Peter had consistently played 1 to 3 strokes higher than Mike and John. (In fact in Jackie's original handicap configuration Peter's handi was a full 3 strokes higher than Mike and John- too bad Peter missed the first round and couldn't take advantage of the opportunity.)


The others were going to be harder to calibrate. For the K brothers, Jackie had a only small window of observation and needed to rely heavily on the reports from each brother as to their relative golfing prowess. Add to that the counsel of JMT rule guru RL, and Jackie settled on matching handicaps for the Koyamas. Jason was left shaking his head and Elder K could be seen smirking behind a plate of crab legs as Jackie confirmed that they would share a handicap after round one. Young K was betrayed by his own sweet swing which probably influenced Jackie in this decision. On the first tee at Rolling Hills, John and Mike stood watching as Young K got off his tee shot. They marvelled at the sweet fluid motion, which wound up dooming Young K to a season of perpetual frustration.


It wasn't until the 5th event of the year that Margie and DYoung had scores that varied from each other. Fittingly they shared a handicap that has received the greatest attention on the tour. Given that Margy goes into the final event as the tour's highest ranked player and that DYoung has scored a major victory, the controversy is not surprising. But consider this. Prior to Lowville, Jackie posted probable handicap changes for '09. Margy and DYoung's handicap would change by one stroke COMBINED. All the other golfers can whine and complain, but this is hard evidence that Jackie got their handicaps right all along.


For all the moaning and handicap complaining, also consider that the average change in handicap for the eight players mentioned above is two strokes. Given how difficult setting fair handicaps was going to be at the outset of the tour- Jackie and his advisors deserve a pat on their collective backs for their work in this regard as well.


As per rules and regulations/policies and procedures histroy may not be as kind- that'll be the next stop on this little judgemnet train.

(Tom was not mentioned- but he deserves a blog posting all of his own-so we'll save that for another day.)

JMT: Golf Tour or American Daytime Talk Show Fodder?!?

Perhaps the JMT is a microcosm for all sport- and could well serve a 2nd year sociology course to help explain why there's so much money available to grown men playing games. Really, does it makes sense that a 32 year old be paid $15,000,000 to play baseball for a few months? Sports is the background for human drama, a medium that generates emotion unimagineable until it starts to actually appear.



Case Study for first Semester: The Kingpin, Jackie Moon himself.



Although most tour members are at least somewhat aware of why Jackie invented the tour in the first place, most fans of the league are in the dark regarding the original motivation. It was a gesture of friendship, an act of compassion coupled by some natural tendencies of pioneering, and leadership. That this description lacks any meaningful detail is intentional. The ideas mentioned are significant. This is the side of Jackie that faces east in the morning. The JMT was not a brainchild of Jackie's- this undertaking was born in his heart.



A project as large in scope and ambition as a nine-member, 13 event golf tour should not be underestimated. Securing membership turned out to be a fairly simple process, and there's already reason to believe the tour will grow in its sophmore year. Figuring out a schedule came easily enough. The first event co-incided with the start of the season and the bi-weekly schedule made sense for many reasons. Jackie can be applauded also for his work not only for finding venues with decent playing conditions, but also for booking tee times immediately into twilight hours to ensure the tour could carry out one of its initial objectives to provide good value for its members. In these respects the JMT is a resounding success, and historians will fondly look back at 2008.



After this blogger gets some work done- we'll return to examine some of the uglier aspects of year one: handicaps and regulations.