Golf is not immune to controversy. Computers writing stories about it, the ruling bodies cutting back on how far will travel, and more players going to LIV for the BIG BUCKS. Renowned golf columnist Gary Van Sickle shares his expert insights with the Senior Delinquents. Must see for golfers!
Uncommon Sense with the senior delinquent Welcome everybody to another episode of the senior delinquents I’m Dennis Silvers here in Las Vegas along with my co-host Jamie McWilliams who is in Tampa Florida and we have a fantastic guest for you today Gary vanle is one of golf’s most followed golf Riders having covered 125 men’s major championships
And and 14 writer cups his work includes 20 years with Sports Illustrated and golf.com he has also served as president of the golf Riders Association of America G Van Sickle we are so happy to have you on senior delinquents on this show because I know you know
You’re you’re just Chuck full of great information and you’re going to be a great guest in and Jamie and I are very happy to have you want you to know that well it’s it’s great being had by you guys and yes I am a senior delinquent although it does sound like we’re part
Of some kind of Halfway House program but it’s not it’s not far off base actually so there you go you go against the grain of it and and to tell you the truth Gary uh I Google earthed your your house because I want to see that’s what
It’s like to live in Pittsburgh and a little shocked to find out that the deck you put on the back of your house was all the in and other Awards you just crafted them together I thought that was a little tacky but very good use of all
Of that material so it’s great to have you quality that’s some Quality Lumber there and you just can’t waste not want not well Gary a recent article in Sports Illustrated was authored by Drew Ortiz and it gave information on the best fish in lures only there was a problem and it
Was the author there is no Drew Ortiz who authored the article it was done by an AI program and that has created a firestorm what’s your reaction to it we know AI was already doing like writing up prep stories because it’s not that hard Joe Jones scored 27 points and had
12 rebounds this is a little different they’re taking it up a level but here’s where they went wrong making up a fake by line name that’s kind of a gray area for me to me that’s borderline and maybe I’d be okay with that but then they went ahead and created a fake
Biography for Drew or and all these other guys now when you create a fake biography that’s out andout fraud I then I mean that’s open and shut so I I don’t know SI can say they didn’t know about that but they had they had to know and they should have known it’s
Kind of like being the head coach of a football team if you do know you should be fired and if you don’t know you should be fired for not knowing so it was it was wrong on every count Bob herro another president of the golf writers who is now still working and on
Staff at SI I asked him about it same reaction as you but what I didn’t know he says well actually they have a union there and they’re really outraged because he felt like this is about people and more about money and just saying we’re trying to save a few bucks
No question as far as the media goes there’s no interest in a quality product anymore the bean counters are in charge everywhere they count clicks on the internet they don’t count Awards they don’t care about quality that’s why every story is three things about Thursday’s round at Augusta
Or four things you didn’t know about Greg Norman we had seen each other down at Myrtle Beach Pine Lakes Country Club with the golf writers we had played there and that was the birth of Sports Illustrated and it was the premier Sports publication in the country it
Really is sad to see that it’s kind of I don’t know if you say devolve but it’s changed in ways that are not good it’s about saving money because you might have noticed Sports illustrate has gone from being a weekly to a bi-weekly to barely a monthly yeah and magazines are
Like newspapers they’re circling the drain if not already down the drain and it’s over it’s so disheartening to have been in this business that was so good and now the assumption that people on the internet don’t want to read something of quality are incapable of reading
It uh to me it’s a wrong assumption but that’s because everything’s about money it’s kind of literature for dummies that’s where we are literature for dummies well I actually today I went and looked at on YouTube by a company in India presentation on how to use it and
I tried to use it and what I discovered is this is Heaven for computer obsessed nerds who can’t write because when I tried to get it to write a sports Story the steps that were outlined you’re putting almost as much work into setting it up to do what you wanted wanted to do
As just doing it yourself so for me I just said all of that doesn’t make it that efficient and then throwing in the factor that there’s no Humanity to it there’s no real context or personalization and uh it was a kind of complete disaster ai ai is never going to write a
Lead like under a blue gray October Sky The Four Horsemen wrote again it’s never going to happen unless it plagiarizes yeah unless it plagiarizes but it wouldn’t even know that that was any good so this is happening not just in sports writing but everywhere I mean they’ve got robots now that are they’re
Teaching them how to flip pizzas we’re going to replace all workers with AI and it sounds a lot like any of 12 Arnold Schwarzenegger movies well you know Gary I’m interested to get your take on on rolling back the golf ball all of the people that I have talked to on my golf
Show think it’s a terrible decision as I do for a number of reasons and really when you think about it the only people that it’s really going to affect and I don’t know whether you will agree with this or not really are the amateurs not so much the
Professionals as usual it’s too little too late you don’t let people use stuff and then take it away but this is how it’s been you can go back to the long putter that started in the early 80s with Charlie Owens and Johnny Miller and they let that go 35 years the problem
With this there was really nobody in favor of bringing the ball back except the purist yeah PGA T doesn’t want it they don’t want their product affected the players don’t want to give up anything that might be a competitive disadvantage the manufacturers were totally against it especially Titleist
They run their businesses the ball makers by using the PGA Tour to advertise their product for now granted we’ve picked up 30 yards in the last 20 years and we’re only giv five yards back it’s not that big of a deal given that what we’ve gained I mean I got longer
Off the tea in my 40s and through my 50s it was great the obvious solution was by foration one set of rules for professional golf and one for amateur golf in their defense it would have cost a fortune they’ve got to make two kinds of balls two kinds of equipment once you
Take bifurcation out of the equation as a possible answer but as far as the amateurs go were you unhappy with golf 10 years ago the way you played how far the ball went okay okay then we’re going to go back 10 years all right you we
Were already there and it was okay it’s going to be the same proportionally for everybody look let’s go back to the beginning where this got off the rails that was when Gary Adams came up with the metal woods the USGA back in the mid-70s all they had to do was say metal
Woods what part of the word wood don’t you understand if metal woods are not allowed where are we right now we’re still hitting pmen farther they’ve missed the vat on technology all the way along Gary I wouldn’t care if they rolled it back 25% I always think that the game is
Relative and a little bit of a parable as an aside I have a ping bag and I’ll go out with three clubs and four clubs and sometimes amaze myself and that I’ll be one over or two over par for those four or five holes because even though I’m hitting shorter I’m putting in
Positions where I can chip I’ll putt with a five iron I’ve traveled with 10 and 11 clubs just to keep the weight down and I found out that I played about the same if they went to 10 or 11 clubs I’ll bet you handicaps wouldn’t change that radically all it would happen is
People would have to think maybe a little bit more like the pros in terms of calculating where are the misses where can I do it and and you’re a good golfer I’ll bet you you could adapt to it too I I’m more favor of saying just
Enjoy the game and and take what’s there and if you use your head rather than look for the Magic Bullet it’ll still be a good game you know it’s funny I usually travel I take one Club out too for the weight reasons but stop and think what you’re saying
Jamie I know you want manufacturers to sell fewer pieces of equipment oh my gosh you’re on rest they don’t want to hear that another reason why more players are going to jump to the live tour money money money how are you are you good with this
Does money making this game a hell of a lot better especially on the professional level the guys who’ve gone to live they all have one thing in common pretty much except for kka who won the PGA as soon as you go to live you drop off the map of golf that’s what
Happens you don’t get any publicity you’re not on you’re not on a big TV network you know you win a tournament you beat 47 guys named burnt vburger I mean the real problem is the tournaments don’t have meaning and they aren’t ever going to have meaning they don’t have
Names the PGA Tour has all that history Colonial and Pebble Beach and they go back to the same spots Liv you know maybe has gone back to two or three the same courses but the tournaments don’t have a name it’s just the live tournament in London they’re not
Building any history it’s an exhibition series for money and I thought the team thing might have been the way for them to go to differentiate the themselves just have Team Golf and make it like a sports League you know with franchises you make trades you have a draft all
That kind of thing but they’re playing individual stroke play plus that and they can’t seem to get on a network that I have access to and when I do see them they got this big scoreboard down the side that’s so cluttered it’s very hard to even keep track of what’s going on
It’s I don’t think anything about their format is appealing but John ROM I guess we’ll miss him who we got Jordan spe Scotty Sheffer you go through eras there’s only a few guys who I hate to say move the needle because that’s such a cliche now but Sneed and Hogan Darnell
Palmer to Jack Nicholas and then tiger and Phil tiger and Phil sold tickets I think there’s always something that the two groups could take to maybe improve whatever they’re doing product wise I think live over time will have some impact on the tour in terms of maybe how
They change or or look at things differently and it’s awfully hard to compete when a when a nation is backing you and even with the LPGA they keep adding events getting bigger and bigger purses but you look at it on TV and there’s hardly any Gallery but the
Money’s keeps getting bigger well it almost seems like the golfing equivalent of the real estate bubble you got all this money coming in but the interest isn’t coming along with it it’s just money when that kind of money is thrown around I mean 400 500 million
John ROM’s never going to make that on the PJ tour no it would take him 15 20 years it’s going to be interesting to see the three players that he Woos over to his team you know they’re going to be Marquee players I wouldn’t be surprised eventually maybe these Live Events
Become part of the tour or they just Stamp Out live talks you can’t it gets so big you can’t ignore it you’re right money talks but also Gary talks and it’s been wonderful having you on the show and we appreciate your insights and hopefully sometime in the future we can
Reignite this when we know where the heck it’s all going visit our website where all of the episodes of the singer delinquents can be seen as well as on various other social media platforms well Dennis I’ve had my latest golf article written by an AI program and it’s being critiqued by another super
Smart AI program so super computer what do you think of my AI writer it’s and so are you well Dennis Everyone’s a Critic so until next time hi ho Silvers away so on partner are you still There
