My Take on Tiger Woods and Dropgate

As both my readers know, I am no Tiger Woods fan. My considerable Tiger shirt collection notwithstanding, I have called him the anti-role model on this very blog. And just when I thought it was difficult for me to dislike the guy any more, Dropgate happened.

If you’ve been on the moon since then, what happened on Friday afternoon slash Saturday morning is sure to be discussed to death in country club grill rooms for years to come. In brief, Tiger hit a perfect wedge shot to the green at no. 15 during Friday’s second round – so perfect, in fact, that it caromed off the flagstick and into the water hazard. Clearly flustered, Tiger weighed his drop options and, as he would later state in a post-round interview, dropped a ball two yards behind where he’d previously hit from so that he could take the same swing he’d just taken and not hit the flagstick again.

I was watching this on my couch and suspected he’d done something wrong, but I didn’t call in to that invisible guy you call to report rules violations. But someone did, and the Masters rules committee was made aware of the situation as Tiger played the 18th hole. The problem: under the drop rule under which he ostensibly proceeded, Tiger was required by rule to drop his ball as nearly as possible to the spot from where he last hit on pain of a two-stroke penalty. As ESPN’s Gene Wojciechowski detailed (more), the committee decided before Tiger signed his scorecard that he had done nothing wrong. Amazingly, no one bothered to discuss the issue with Tiger after he completed his round or before he signed his scorecard. So Tiger signed his scorecard and gave the aforementioned, televised post-round interview where he admitted to dropping the ball two yards back of where he took his previous shot.

Tiger blew it — in more ways than one.

Woops.

According to Wojciechowski, Masters rules committee chairman Fred Ridley was made aware of what Tiger said in his interview at 10 pm on Friday night. Faced now with what amounted to new evidence – Tiger’s unwitting admission – the committee reconsidered its previous decision and determined that it had gotten it wrong. Tiger’s drop was illegal after all. Tiger should have been assessed a two-stroke penalty — but he wasn’t. Technically, therefore, he signed an incorrect scorecard, a big-time no-no in the world of golf.

So here’s my take. First, Tiger’s drop was clearly illegal. Given the relief option he chose, Tiger was required by rule to take his drop as near as possible to the spot he took his last stroke from. Two yards back from that spot is clearly not that. Tiger, therefore, should have signed for an 8 on his scorecard instead of a 6. On this there is no debate.

Second, given its handling of the situation, the rules committee at least arguably made the correct call by assessing Tiger a two-stroke penalty rather than outright DQing him. Under rule 33-7, the competition committee “may in exceptional cases” waive the disqualification penalty. What made Friday’s case “exceptional” wasn’t the fact that it involved Tiger Woods or that it was The Masters – the rules committee wouldn’t soil the integrity of its much-revered competition with reasoning like that. Nor was it the fact that Tiger didn’t know he took an illegal drop when he took it: there is a specific Rules Decision (33-7/4.5) that says “ignorance of the rules or facts that the player could have discovered prior to signing his scorecard” are not sufficient reasons to waive to the disqualification penalty. What made this case “exceptional” was the rules committee’s botching of it — twice. First, it incorrectly concluded while Tiger was still playing that his drop was fine when it obviously wasn’t. (I wonder if the committee would have exonerated a certain fourteen-year old Chinese amateur with such alacrity.) Second, it didn’t take the very easy step of addressing the situation with Tiger before he signed his scorecard – an inexplicable error if ever there was one. The committee could have prevented Tiger from signing an incorrect scorecard, as the PGA did with Dustin Johnson after he brushed sand in a bunker on the 72nd hole at the 2010 PGA Championship. It just didn’t. The committee concluded, therefore, that it would have been, in Ridley’s words, “grossly unfair” to Tiger to disqualify him based on what he said in his interview when it could have prevented him from signing an incorrect scorecard.

This point is a lot closer than Ridley made it sound. Tiger’s exoneration happened without his knowledge, so effectively retracting that decision through disqualification doesn’t seem terribly unfair. Had Tiger relied on a ruling made by a rules official that turned out to be wrong, then “grossly unfair” would be an appropriate description. But that didn’t happen. The stronger argument is that it would be grossly unfair to use Tiger’s post-round interview against him but, from what I’ve read so far, that is not the argument the committee made.

Third, this situation will not mark the end of the “trial by TV viewer” era, as many players and commentators suggested yesterday. Cases where rules committees and players do not know about alleged rules infractions until after the player signed his scorecard will not be affected by this case, which PGA Tour player Aaron Oberholser curiously likened to “Supreme Court precedent.” Those cases will be unaffected because there will not be an intervening cause – a committee botch job – that would make disqualification “grossly unfair.” Ignorance of the rules or facts that the player could have discovered prior to signing his scorecard” remain an insufficient reason to waive the DQ penalty – by rule. Players will still get disqualified from time to time based on the minutest of infractions caught by guys on their couches with nothing better to do. Now, however, people will complain (wrongly) that there are two sets of rules – Tiger’s and everyone else’s.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, Tiger should have withdrawn. It is incumbent upon players to follow the rules. If a player does not know them, it is incumbent upon him to call in a rules official. In this case, Tiger was dealing with a rule with which most mid-handicappers are familiar – how and where to drop a ball after you’ve drenched one. He just botched it. If he had any uncertainty he could have called for a rules official: he didn’t do that, either. In the end, he never played a ball from where the rules required him to play it – a spot he intentionally avoided lest he hit the flagstick again. Whether he would have hit the flagstick again, or come up short with an incrementally softer swing – neither we nor any of his competitors will ever know. What we do know is that Tiger did not play the 15th hole by the rules of golf like the rest of the field did. And while it arguably would have been unfair to Tiger to be DQ’ed after the committee exonerated him without his knowledge, the flipside is also true: it is unfair to the other players for Tiger to remain in the field just because the committee could have saved him but didn’t. And inasmuch as most of those other players wouldn’t have been on TV, they would not have been entitled to the benefit of the committee blowing a ruling if they had been accused of a wrong drop by, say, an on-course fan. Tiger’s acceptance of the committee’s gesture, therefore, was not the honorable thing to do in this most honorable of games.

Then again, this is a guy who cheated on his wife with every Waffle House waitress from here to Tallahassee, who cusses like a sailor at the slightest mishit, who throws clubs in front of kids and who, as a 22-year old, refused to autograph a golf ball to help his colleagues Brad Faxon and Billy Andrade raise money for charity.

Honor is the furthest thing from this guy’s mind.

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Tiger Woods: The Anti-Role Model

I’ve long believed that people see others in Shakespearean terms — “to be or not to be.” From some we learn how to be — these some we call “role models.” I put my recently-deceased high school buddy Anthony King in that category. (More.) From others we learn how not to be — what I’d call “anti-role models.” I put my mom and most of the patients on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew in that one.

I put Tiger Woods there, too. He built gobs of goodwill with me with his sticks — heck, I darn near have a section in my closet just for Nike golf garb. (Check out the pic in this entry.) But over the last few years he’s blown through it. After yesterday’s Masters telecast I’ll make it the official position of the Jenkins family parents vis-a-vis Reese and Finn: do not be like Tiger Woods.

His crime yesterday was being short — very short — with CBS interviewer Bill McAtee. The latter asked some fair questions in his quick interview with El Tigre after the latter had finished his final round — “Did you feel like you played well enough to win?,” “What will you do now?” etc. Not the stuff of Tim Russert to be sure, but par for the course for a thirty-second interview. Tiger’s curt responses — basically, “We’ll see” and “I’m gonna eat” — would have made Bill Bellichick blush. (More.) He didn’t even wait for MacAtee to sign off before he walked away. Must have been mighty hungry.

Cheetah's post-round interview with Bill MacAtee was the latest example of him showing contempt for both the game and other professionals.

This was hardly Tiger at his worst. His philandering, club throwing and on-course profanity (YouTube: Tiger Woods profanity) are the stuff of legend. The first was done in private and isn’t my business, but the latter two, which have caught the scorn of some pretty big names in the golf world (1I2), are done on course, on camera, and all the time. I’m pretty sure Tiger yelled a “f–k yeah” after making eagle on 8 yesterday — this from a guy who’s publicly admitted he needs to show more respect for the game. (Ya think?) This MacAtee incident was not only on national TV — it was done directly to another professional, and a pretty good one at that.

Professionals just don’t do that to other professionals on national TV. Jack, Arnie, Ernie, Phil — none would have treated an interviewer so dismissively. Tiger’s suspicions that he’d probably come up a few strokes short in his quest for green jacket number five doesn’t justify it. Luke Donald, Adam Scott and Jason Day all came up short in their quests for their first ones, yet somehow they were able to handle their post-round interviews with the class the occasion demanded. Ditto for Rory McIlroy, a kid fourteen years Tiger’s junior who knew he’d just made history for all the wrong reasons with his epic final round collapse. (Watch.) But Tiger couldn’t. He may as well have jumped on top of his playing partner’s line. I’m sure MacAtee would have preferred it had Tiger just said Heismanned the interview request altogether. At least then he’d have been spared being disrespected in front of millions.

None of this is to say that I don’t respect Cheetah as a player — and playah, for that matter, so long as he’s not married. His career record is second to one, he’s dominated the last decade-plus inside the ropes like no other, and he pulls off shots I — and probably some of his peers — can’t even imagine. Nor is it to say I don’t think he treats his peers on Tour well — at least those in its upper echelon. Nor is it even to say he should be more like Phil Mickelson, the proverbial anti-Tiger. I like Phil some, but he’s not without fault either: his sheepish, family guy persona strikes me as a bit contrived. (According to this article in GQ, I’m not alone.) What it is to say is that he should be more like a good and decent human being. Not just to his peers and the corporate fat cats who butter his bread. To everyone — fans, writers, even announcers whose questions he may not like.

Until he does, that sound you hear coming from casa de Jenkins on Sunday afternoons will be the Jenkins Family parents rooting against him.

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The Best Golf Apparel Brands, 2010

I’m in the golf apparel mood right now. I’m buying it like the stores were closing (1I2I3) and I’m writing about it like I actually had readers — first the best-dressed players on the PGA Tour, then the worst, then a full-fledged How To guide just for Phil Mickelson. Today’s a rainy Monday and I don’t feel like paying bills or visiting the crumbling buildings of my empire. Thus I give my two readers my list of the best golf apparel brands of 2010.

A words on what I mean here. “Best” covers, in no particular order: quality; availability; innovation; design; brand; and price, with the last being first, second and maybe even third among equals. “Golf apparel” includes shirts, pants, sweaters, vests and hats — but not outwear and shoes. And I’m only focused on stuff for fellas. There’s lots of great gear out there for gals, but when the kids go to bed I’m not on the ‘net searching for great new skirts.

A word, too, on what it took to qualify for consideration on this, uh, elite list. The brand has to be fairly available in America. Thus, brands like Gabicci (Graeme McDowell) and Aquascutum (Adam Scott [more]) don’t qualify. And it has to have, at the very least, some focus on golf. Thus, Polo qualified for consideration but Burberry and Land’s End — both of which have great stuff that looks good on a golf course but have neither golf divisions nor golf-only lines — did not.

That all said, my top ten is as follows:

10. Dunning (of which I currently have one [1] piece). Nice stuff, but shirts are cut about a size too large and their standard poly fabric is way too heavy for summer wear … We did Dunning shirts for ’09 Greenspan and I’m confident not a single player reached for Dunning ever again … Reasonable price points … They just lost Zach Johnson, but word is they’re looking to become a broader-based lifestyle brand.
9. IJP Design (0). Ian Poulter’s trouser offering alone gets IJP on my list … Lacking a bit above the belt … Hat designer should be fired … High quality brings high price points to match.
8. Under Armour (2). Nice looking, reasonably priced stuff … Not the most exclusive of brands, but who cares? … Nothing earth-shattering in their golf stuff, but no big mistakes, either … The few UA golf shirts I have are among my favorites in a considerable collection.
7. Q’aja (0). London/Milan based, availability in U.S. is so limited that they arguably don’t even qualify for my list … Do custom stuff for Darren Clarke, Phil Mickelson and Lee Westwood, among others … Quality wise way at the top of the list, along with IJP and Peter Millar … Would be higher on my list if I lived in London.

Darren Clarke's Q'aja gear: I might have to add a piece to my bucket list.

6. iliac (1). New brand steeped in the trappings of tradition — sort of the golf equivalent of Polo by Ralph Lauren … Trouser offering is way up there in the marketplace (wish I could afford a pair of tartan plaid pants)… Aren’t going to make any money on volume right now, so whille the price points aren’t the worst on this list, they’re above my comfort zone … Oversized leather “i” shield doesn’t work well on the thinner cotton shirt sleeves … Not even a year out of the box and they’ve already landed Zach Johnson (late of Dunning) and David Duval (Nike), so unless they go completely sideways, ’11 is going to be a high-growth year.

iliac's signing of David Duval will make '11 a high-growth year.

5. Polo (1). The gold standard of preppy, country club golf … Virtually zero points for trendiness and innovation, and that oversized big pony logo has got to go.
4. Puma (5). A year ago Puma was nowhere in the American golf market. Now, there’s Rickie Fowler … High scores for trendiness and innovation, especially with their military caps, of which I own too many (pics: 1I2)… Lose a few points because much of their gear can only be worn by the under-40 set.

Rickie Fowler has single handedly launched Puma golf. Now if only he could fix his hats ...

3. Peter Millar (0). Head to toe, on and off the course, this may be the best clothing brand around … Nothing in the golf world eighteen months ago, PM now boasts no fewer than thirteen PGA Tour pros … If their Summar Comfort Mesh Classic Stripe polo isn’t the sharpest golf shirt on the market today, it’s damn close … Would be higher on this list but for its price points, which are too rich for my blood.
2. Greg Norman (2). The Greg Norman Collection is solid if not spectacular across the board with just enough double-thumbs-up pieces … Gets extra points for reasonable pricing, a function, no doubt, of volume … ’11′s collection, reportedly to be available at Macy’s, looks like it’ll be even better than ’10′s.

Greg Norman is near the top of his craft. Again.

1. Antigua (3). Close call here between Steve Stricker’s former apparel provider and the Great White Shark … Not a lot of home runs, but rock solid from top to bottom … Very reasonable prices put them ahead of higher-end, higher-quality brands like Peter Millar and Q’aja, which would be higher on my list if price wasn’t so important … The solid polo Antiguas we’ve had in Greenspans past are the most worn shirts any of us own … Underappreciated by clothies, no doubt, because of their lack of A-list Tour players, although Kevin Streelman and Billy Mayfair are solid reps … Could extend its lead by doing more in the innovation department … Longtime favorite at Greenspan Cup.

Notable but intentional ommissions:

Cutter & Buck (6). The Renton-based retailer has too many ugly colors and seems stuck somewhere around 2001. (Just picked up a bunch of it, however, at the factory giveaway.)

Nike (45-50 most pictured here). Its ’10 Tiger Collection stunk, and the rest of its golf wear is just too techie for me. Its ’11 stuff does look promising, however. (More.)

J. Lindeberg (0). Fine and good stuff if you have six percent body fat, but not a viable option for the rest of us. And those price points — yikes.

Adidas (0). I understand the need for the logo to be visible, but for Adidas the three stripes everywhere just overwhelms the clothes.

Ashworth (15). The Corey Pavin of golf brands: once at the top of the heap but couldn’t keep up with the new upstarts. (Not that I won’t buy it at the right price.)

Subjective? Yes. Open to debate? No doubt about it. Indeed, I can practically hear Jeff Benezra taking me to task for putting Puma and Polo ahead of IJP Design.

No worries. That’s what friends — and lists — are for.

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How Phil Mickelson Can Fix His Look

The second-best player of his generation doesn't look as good as he should.

Depending on who you ask, Phil Mickelson is either among the best- or worst-dressed players on the PGA Tour. The Man in the Black Hat is in the former camp. (More.)

I am firmly in the latter.

On my 42-inch television, the world’s second-best player looks terrible. It’s not for lack of trying: according to Golf.com, the four-time major winner get his threads custom made by the folks at Q’aja Couture in London. They also do, inter alia, Darren Clarke, who may just be the best-dressed golfer alive. (Oh but what I wouldn’t give to get some duds custom made by that tailor.) My buddy Jeff Benezra and I have wondered aloud on more than one occasion: “what is Phil Mickelson thinking?“

All these conversations got me to thinking: If I were advising Phil Mickelson on his on-course fashion, what would I tell him?

For a guy who makes $70 million/year, this look just ain't gettin' it done.

And what I’d tell him is this:

Dress yourself like a new Ford Mustang. Classic muscle with a modern twist.

An empty statement in and of itself, I admit. But I’m not without particulars:

Wear better-fitting, and better-looking, shirts. If Phil’s custom-made shirts aren’t the worst on Tour, they’re close. (An example.) With his frame he’d be better off wearing shirts with pointier self collars and standard-length sleeves, a la Dunning Golf’s stretch solid polos. Standard-length sleeves would be a quantum leap forward from the ones he wears now, which belong only only guys named “Camilo,” and the pointed spread collars would give a crisp, sharp edge to a softish look. If he went with the longer sleeves he could get away with a tailored cut, which is what I’m sure he’d like to do, his considerble midsection notwithstanding. Of course, it would be easier altogether if he would wear looser-fitting shirts, as he does when he plays Ryder- and Presidents Cups. But this is Phil Mickelson we’re talking about: he’s not going to do anything conventional.

Stretch polos with pointed tab collars would look better on Phil than the button-tabbed, short-sleeved versions he currently favors.

(Speaking of Dunning, the Man in the Black Hat says that the Toronto-based company is looking to expand beyond golf and become more of a lifestyle brand. (More.) I could see a worse ad campaign than Philly Mick being a family man in Dunning’s threads. Then again, his endorsement deal would probably run them the lion’s share of their annual gross revenues.)

Cut out the dark top/light bottom combos. Phil frequently wears dark tops with light bottoms. And the colors are hard — browns, deep greens, etc. This draws attention to his waste — a bad idea — and makes him appear top heavy. Better to reverse it, or:

Go with less varied top/bottom combos altogether. I’m not saying Rickie Fowler/Sergio Garcia unicolors here, but Phil would look a lot better without so many high-contrast pants-shirt combos. That combination splits him at the waste, thereby drawing attention to it. Not good. Instead of white pants and a dark brown shirt, for example, how about light gray pants, white shirt, and a light blue vest? Anything with more tonal consistency from head to toe would work better than what he’s doing now. I’m thinking Justin Leonard in his Ben Hogan/Polo days, or Tiger Woods most of the time. While he’s at it, it wouldn’t hurt to:

Throw something on those shirts. Right now he’s got piping and that’s about it. How about some argyle? Maybe some stripes. No doubt conventional wisdom is that heavy guys should stay away from horizontal stripes. But Phil ain’t foolin’ anyone now, so a few stripes wouldn’t hurt. Phil wears horizontal stripes in the team events, and he looks just fine.

Save for a few too many elbees, Phil wasn't too far off circa 2005.

Cut down on the bold colors. Phil does too many hard colors. He should move to more muted tones — light brown instead of dark chocolate brown, light blue instead of sea blue, etc. I’d say light pink a la Robert Allenby instead of ketchup red here, but Phil thinks he looks so bad in pink that he wouldn’t wear it on Breast Cancer Awareness Day in May, so that’s a no go.

Lengthen his sleeves and throw him in some muted tones as Corey Pavin did at the '10 Ryder Cup and Phil can look quite good.

Lose the thick belts in favor of standard-width ones. The thick belts he’s favoring these day draw attention to his gut. Never a good idea unless your name is Charles Howell III or Camilo Villegas.

Switch back to a visor. The fitted hats he wears are fine, I suppose, but he looked better in a visor. It showed his longish hair more, which fits better with his swashbuckling style. Risk here is that his hair is so long now that he might end up looking like Michael Letzig in lid. Then again, he can always get a haircut.

In short, Phil should stop what he’s doing now in favor of a more trendy, big guy sartorial elegance — somewhere, say, between Darren Clarke

and Scott Piercy

with a lean toward Clarke if he wants to lean traditional, Piercy if he wants to go trendy.

It’s a safe bet that Philly Mick will never come knockin’ on this never-was’s door for fashion advice. And if he ever reads this blog entry, no doubt he won’t pay attention to any of it. Can’t say I blame him. Looking good or not, he’s no doubt laughing all the way to the bank.

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Worst-Dressed Players on the PGA Tour

My discovery earlier this week of Chapeau Noir Golf prompted me to do a Top Ten Best-Dressed Players on the PGA Tour list yesterday, which in turn prompted me to do a Ten Worst-Dressed Players today.

Let me first say that, with a few exceptions, it hard to call any PGA Tour players “badly dressed.” The vast majority of them are wearing slacks, shirts and shoes that neither I nor my two readers could ever afford, and it’s difficult to look too terrible when your outfit costs the better part of a Super Bowl ticket. Still a few guys on Tour do manage to blow it in the dressing department — even when they’re spending thousands of dollars to do it.

In order of worst dressed to better dressed (No. 1 being the worst), my Worst Dressed list is as follows:

1. John Daly. But for Charley Hoffman, Long John would have won this title going away — his first win in quite some time. The Loudmouth pants are atrocious and he doesn’t help things by combining them with hats and shirts that rarely go. And while it may be unfair to say he looks like he dresses in the dark, it is fair to say he looks like he dresses in a dimly-lit room. (Ed. note: I don’t begrudge the guys at Loudmouth. They succeeded in building a national brand, something I tried to do with Betcha.com but failed [although, to be fair, I didn't exactly get a fair shake]. I just don’t care for their gear.)

The hat, pants, and shirt/sweater are all fine -- by themselves. But JD usually looks like he dressed in a dimly-lit room.

2. Charley Hoffman. Green shoes, flat-brimmed hats, green gloves. I just don’t know what this guy is thinking, but he looks bad in a “hard to look at” sort of way. If Daly was -18 in the Worst Dressed Tourney, Hoffman was -17.

3. Woody Austin. Aquaman’s a distant third in my Worst Dressed Tourney metaphor, somewhere around -10. I don’t know what he’s wearing these days, but I think he wore that Tobasco gear for about ten years. That’s ten years too long. Ditto for Scott Hoch, who’d have made my list but that he’s now on the Champions Tour.

4. Boo Weekley. I should probably be kinder to Boo because at least he’s making an effort and has his own schtick. But that camo look he’s got going on just doesn’t work. Even for a country hayseed.

Ugliest. Shirts. Around.

5. J.B. Holmes. I don’t know what it is about J.B.’s look, but for some reason he just doesn’t look good. Maybe it’s that steady diet of two-toned shirts. Or maybe it’s that he so often favors orange shirts with black undershirts (Halloween, anyone?). Or maybe it’s the Cobra hat that never seems to go with the rest of his outfit. I can’t put my finger on it, but it has him at No. 5 on this list.

6. Phil Mickelson. I love watching Phil. He’s the second-best player of his generation, he’s as charasmatic as the day is long, and I think he’d make a great PGA Tour Commissioner one day. (Ditto for his caddie, Jim “Bones” MacKay, who’s articulate, knows the Tour inside and out, and is as well respected in his craft as anyone who’s ever lugged a bag.) But Phil just doesn’t look good on the golf course. It isn’t that he doesn’t drop the cash — I heard his custom-made brown alligator shoes went for something like $1,500. It’s that what he wears just doesn’t work. The pinstripe pants are too much, and those shirts — my God those shirts. For the life of me I can’t figure out how Phil doesn’t get it golf fashionwise. I’d have him higher on this list but at least he has some style — I can’t say that about any of the top five.

7. Steve Elkington. Conventional wisdom was that Elk was one of the best-dressed players on Tour. Neither I nor nor his colleagues see it that way. The ’95 PGA champion used to look like a ho-hum PGA Tour pro. But somewhere along the line something went sideways. I’ve heard commentators say he designs his own stuff; if true, he should consider leaving clothing design to professional designers. These days, his hats sit too high, his shirts lack both in size and sleeve length and I think his pants still have pleats.

Like Philly Mick, Elk tries -- but doesn't pull it off.

8. Bubba Watson. The Man in the Black Hat ranks Bubba among the best-dressed players on Tour. (More.) As I explained in my Best Dressed column, I dissent.

9. Sergio Garcia. Sergio often gets it right on the golf course. But just as often he gets it wrong — way wrong. His Adidas hats are awful with that piping, and the Doug Sanders-inspired monochrome look doesn’t work well — especially when he does it in anything but black. (Remember his canary suit at Hoylake?) Of course, no one looks good when they’re horking loogies.

Too often Sergio looks like walking sherbert.

10. Bill Haas. Jay’s kid is a classic example of a guy dressing about twenty years older than he is. The guy’s lean, cut and nice looking — but he dresses like a guy fixing to move to the Champions Tour. Too many knit collars and sleeves to the elbows for a guy in his twenties. Because he’s otherwise got the look, this one’s an easy fix, and I don’t anticipate him being on this list for long.

Dishonorable mention goes to Dustin Johnson (see my commentary on my Best Dressed entry), Jim Furyk (those camp shirts of a few years back were horrid), Jeff Quinney (see Bill Haas), Matt Kuchar (ditto, plus his pants don’t fit) and Brian Davis (those techie shirts and techier sunglasses — yuck).

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Column: “The Supreme Court’s Betcha.com Decision: Judging At Its Worst”

Last week, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that Betcha.com, a Seattle-based person-to-person betting platform I founded, violated the very state Gambling Act I designed it to comply with. The Court’s opinion didn’t pass the giggle test.

Betcha was a social networking site where people offered and accepted bet propositions. (Think Ebay meets Facebook in Las Vegas.) We charged people to offer and accept those propositions. The Site was honor-based: bettors could opt out of their losses (read: no gambling), but if they did they risked receiving negative feedback. The Washington State Gambling Commission shut us down in 2007 — we’ve been in court since. In 2009, a Washington Court of Appeals held that there was “no logical basis” to conclude Betcha bettors were “gambling” under state law. It also held we were not bookmaking as the State had alleged.

The Supreme Court didn’t reach “gambling.” Instead it held that Betcha, which lets individuals bypass bookmakers by connecting them personally, was itself a bookmaking operation and thus engaged in “professional gambling.” How it got there was jaw dropping.

“A person is engaged in ‘professional gambling’ … when (t)he person engages in bookmaking.” RCW 9.46.0269(1)(d). “(B)ookmaking” means “accepting bets, upon the outcome of future contingent events, as a business or in which the bettor is charged a fee or ‘vigorish’ for the opportunity to place a bet.” RCW 9.46.0213. The Court read the first “or” as separating two independent clauses – everything from “accepting” to “business” on one side, “in which” to “bet” on the other. Since Betcha charged fees, the Court reasoned, it violated the second clause.

The problem: statutory definitions are meant to be read in context. “(B)ookmaking” appears in the definition of “professional gambling,” and when you plug the Court’s second definition of bookmaking into that provision, its error is obvious:

“A person is engaged in professional gambling … when (t)he person engages in (in which the bettor is charged a fee or vigorish’ for the opportunity to place a bet).”

Two consecutive “ins”? Even Microsoft Word’s grammar check knows that’s wrong. The correct read – ours – was that, fees charged or not, one must “accept” bets to be a bookie. By adding an active verb – “charging” — to the statute, thereby making two independent clauses where two dependent ones are written, Justice Tom Chambers (or his law clerk) literally rewrote the law by which I tried to abide. Reasonable people can quibble about what it means to “accept” a bet – although I wonder what it is the bettor who accepts the bet did if Betcha “accepted” it. (“Super-accept” it?) They cannot quibble about grammar or the order and tense of words in a statute.

There’s more. We argued that implied in the term “bets” was that they be gambling bets: to read “bets” as including non-gambling ones would make the statute both unconstitutional and nonsensical. We should have been safe: “bet” appeared on both sides of the “or,” and the State didn’t address our points. No matter. The Court brushed them aside, too, concluding that we were asking them to read words into the statute. So the Gambling Act covers even betting that isn’t gambling. Wow. Having decided that Betcha was bookmaking, the Court didn’t consider whether Betcha bettors were “gambling” – thus, “professional gambling” without actual gambling. All in a criminal statute, where doubts about coverage are supposed to be resolved against the State. Not a single justice doubted such an odd result. Hmm.

I knew we were in trouble at oral argument, when the justices raised objection after objection we’d knocked down in our supplemental brief. (I wonder if a single justice even skimmed it.) I really knew we were toast when Justice Jim Johnson asked whether Betcha would compete against tribal casinos. But I didn’t think a state supreme court – or traffic court — would airmail in an opinion that so evidenced a pick-the-winner-first approach. If it didn’t mean I’ll almost certainly go to prison, the Court’s earth moving would be comical. So blatant were the Court’s errors that I wonder whether it was the law or the identity of the litigants that mattered at the Temple of Justice. I would have preferred a one-line opinion that said “look, dude, you can’t beat the State.”

At least there’d have been no pretense of objectivity.

Nicholas G. Jenkins is a 1991 graduate of the University of Washington, a 1994 graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center, and the founder of Betcha.com. He blogs at JenkinsFamilyBlog.Wordpress.com.

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Column: “Diversity, Drinking, And Dubious Logic”

Ed. note: I wrote this column back in November 2003. I must have been hurting for material.

Just when you thought there were no good arguments left to keep white males off college campuses, researchers at Harvard have come up with another one. In a study entitled “Watering Down Drinks: The Moderating Effect of College Demographics on Alcohol Use or High-Risk Groups,” Professors Henry Wechsler, Ph.D. and Meichun Kuo of Harvard’s School of Public Health concluded that white males on college campuses cause each other to binge drink. Study the study, however, and a more apt title comes to mind — “Watered Down Logic.”

The study supposedly asked “whether colleges with larger enrollments of students from demographic groups with lower rates of binge drinking (women and minorities) exert a moderating effect on students from groups with higher binge drinking rates (white males).” It analyzed data from 52,312 college students at predominantly white colleges from the 1993, 1997, 1999, and 2003 College Alcohol Study surveys.

According to Harvard’s press release — which announced the study and will be the only thing about it anyone actually reads – the study concluded that binge drinking rates among white, male and underage students are lower at college campuses that have larger proportions of minority, female, and older students. It also found that greater diversity on campuses may serve as a “risk-protective factor,” even for those who were binge drinkers in high school. That is, incoming white freshmen who did not binge drink in high school were less likely to start binge drinking as college students if their universities had higher proportions of African American, Latino, Asian or older students. Conversely, incoming white freshmen who were binge drinking in high school were less likely to continue binging when attending schools with higher percentages of minority or older students. This “risk protective” finding is, in the words of the press release, its “most significant” conclusion.

Now these are quite sensational conclusions. One problem – they don’t follow. It’s one thing to show a correlation between more female- or African American students and lower binge drinking rates. The study indeed did that. But it’s quite another to conclude that the former causes the latter. Freddy Freshman might decide to bury his head in the books on a Friday night. But it doesn’t follow that, but for the presence of twenty-two African Americans in his dorm instead of twenty, he’d have been out hammering a half rack of Heineys. I’ve seen shaky logic in academic studies before, but this takes the keg.

There are — dare I say — other, more common sense, explanations. Wechsler himself admits deep in the text of the actual study that “(c)olleges that have larger numbers of minority and older students and women may attract white, underage and male students with different attitudes about drinking.” In other words, lunkheads who binge drink might be more attracted to the Arizona States of the world than the Yales or Harvards.

Or it might be that male students prone to binge drinking just don’t get accepted to schools with larger numbers of minority- and older students. If there’s an inverse correlation between high school binge drinking and grade point averages, and a positive correlation between premier schools and diversity — and I’m sure Harvard would be proud to say there is — then that’s as good a bet as any.

But neither of these possibilities mattered to the Harvard PC – er, PR – machine that issued the press release. Nor did the causal issue matter much to Dr. Wechsler, who, in paragraph three of the press release, announced like a proud papa that “(t)his study has shown that having a diverse student body on college campuses is an important factor in lowering binge-drinking rates.” (Italics mine.) No mention of alternate causal explanations, which made Wechsler’s next leap easy: “(i)n making decisions about admissions, colleges should recognize the many benefits of greater diversity on campus, including a possible decrease in problem drinking.”

How folly. Using Wechsler’s logic, one way to combat incidents of interracial violence on campus is to not consider race as a factor in admissions. After all, considering race necessarily increases a student body’s minority population and with it, the occurrences of violence between races. Want to increase graduation rates? Admit fewer African Americans – their graduation rates pale compared to whites. Want to combat the problem of eating disorders on college campuses? Admit fewer women – after all, they are statistically more inclined to eating disorders than men. I don’t see anyone in the Harvard faculty lounge signing on to any of those cures. But sign on to a recommendation that sheds white males in a negative light – no problem.

It gets worse. The brilliant Hah-vud minds who wrote the press release concluded that “(t)he findings suggest practical solutions for predominantly white colleges, including: creating a campus environment that would attract a diverse student body; increasing the number of minorities on campus; encouraging more women and older students to live on campus, and in fraternity and sorority houses; and decreasing the heavy concentration on campus of likely high-risk drinkers who are overwhelmingly young, male, and white.”

Diversi-crats should “Amen” that sophistry, because the machine’s startlingly broad conclusion could be used to justify just about anything in their platform. Need a reason to build a new campus diversity center? How about: “A new diversity center will attract a diverse student body, which will decrease the incidents of binge drinking on campus.” Looking for a reason to admit Bobby Blackguy over Willie Whiteguy? How about: “Admitting Billy will decrease the heavy concentration of white males on campus, which will decrease the incidents of binge drinking.” (Note to any white diversi-crats still reading: skip the “Amen.” An atheist may charge you with a hate crime.)

The media is lapping this stuff up off the tap. The Health Channel on Discovery.com proclaimed that “Campus Diversity Leads to Drop in Binge Drinking.” Some outfit called Join Together Online ran a headline over Harvard’s press release proclaiming that “Diverse College Campuses Yield Lower Binge Drinking Rates.” And the always-objective Reuters announced that “Diversity Helps Colleges Trim Binge Drinking.” Even CNN picked up the story. I don’t blame them: they know that sensational, anti-white male headlines are catnip for the chattering class. Trivial matters like truth are secondary at best.

College admissions officers don’t need more reasons to stamp “REJECTED” on white boys’ college applications. Most of them already think all white males are oppressive, even the ones still in high school. They see it as their role to exact a little payback, and now, thanks to this social engineering masquerading as scholarship, they can site public health concerns to do it. Here’s hoping admissions officers stick to the “oppressor” sham when they discrminate against white males. At least for a few of their great-great-great-great-great grandfathers, it might have been true.

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Column: “A Strategic Blunder to Top All Strategic Blunders”

Ed. note: I penned this in November 2006, when I still cared about such things.

The worse part about the Republicans’ loss of the Senate on Tuesday night was, as Newt Gingrich and outgoing Senate Judiciary Chair Arlen Specter (among others) have since pointed out, it was oh-so avoidable. The war was an albatross for Republicans heading into Election Day — specifically, the Bush Administration’s rhetoric about “staying the course.” As late as November 1, President Bush said he expected Rumsfeld to be with him through the duration of his Administration.

But — and here’s the infuriating part — President Bush’s actions didn’t match his rhetoric. Chief of Staff Josh Bolten has since admitted that, behind the scenes, the Administration was looking for a Rumsfeld replacement. And they had him — Texas A&M president Robert Gates — before the election. As Specter pointed out, it’s “a hard thing to calculate (exactly when Bush settled on Rumsfeld’s successor). But it’s highly doubtful that he made up his mind between the time the election returns came in on Tuesday and Wednesday when Rumsfeld was out.” I’d add: you don’t have the president of Texas A&M show up to a Wednesday morning press conference announcing him as Rumsfeld’s replacement unless he’d already agreed to take the position.

The president’s unfortunate decision to withhold his announcement ended up being a major blunder, probably even a historic one. In the short term, it cost the Republicans the Senate. To wit: a poll on AOL News asked: “Would you have voted differently if you knew Rumsfeld was resigning?” Eight percent (8%) of the 283,363 people who responded as of this writing said “yes.” Eight percent! That’s more than enough to have made a difference, and then some. Both George Allen in Virginia and Conrad Burns in Montana lost their races by less than 1% of their states’ votes. If either Allen or Burns wins, the Republicans keep the Senate.

Medium term, the decision will probably cost America the war. Soon-to-be Majority Leader Harry Reid has made it clear that Senate Democrats will spend the next two years bogging the Administration down with subpoenas and document requests. He calls it “oversight.” The presumptive new Chair of the House Government Reform Committee, Henry Waxman of California, echoed the sentiment last week when he said the list of areas of possible Administration wrongdoing is so long that “the most difficult thing will be to pick and choose.” Democratic operative Susan Estrich calls it “Democrats Gone Wild.” The end result of all this — Nancy Pelosi’s headline-grabbing pledge notwithstanding — will, at best, be an Administration that spends the next two years doing little more than responding to document requests. At worse, Democratic “oversight” could very well result in impeachment hearings — if not for some underlying charge like the well-weathered trumped up WMD’s, then for some perceived shortcoming in responding to subpoenas or document requests. (See Patrick Fitzgerald and Plamegate for precedent on that one.) The best way for the Administration to avoid this — negotiate a deal whereby, in exchange for dropping impeachment and investigations ad nauseum, the Democratic leadership gets what it wants. In this case, that’s by announcing a troop withdrawal — er, “redeployment” — from Iraq. In other words: four-plus years, 3,000-some deaths, and untold billions — all for not.

Long term, it may end up costing a lot more. If I’m right about the war winding down, Democrats in Congress can claim that the United States got control of Iraq once the Administration started listening to them. The Republicans strongest card throughout the last generation — foreign policy — will then be in Democratic hands. That will probably be enough to elect a President Obama or Clinton. It will certainly be enough to keep the Senate in Democrat hands through 2008. That means a move left in health care, entitlements, and economic/tax policy, among other areas. It also means the one more conservative Supreme Court appointment needed to kickstart a Roberts revolution ain’t gonna happen.

Worst for all Americans, the very-avoidable election results sent a message to all those who would oppose America abroad that they can affect political change in America — and hence, military victory on the battlefield — if only they keep up the propoganda war. Terrorists now know it’s official: America may not be a paper tiger. But it is surely a tiger run by its papers.

President Bush might have had a good point when he said after the election that announcing Rumsfeld’s ouster before the election would have put off the troops. But it was just that — a point. It was far outweighed by the risk of holding back . The president’s dubious call may well kill two revolutions — the conservative revolution at home, the democratic revolution (battle one: Iraq) abroad. Just a guess, but the mostly-Republican troops will find that to be a far-more offputting result.

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Column: “Betcha Founders Don’t Belong in Shackles”

The following op-ed was published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on October 2, 2007. A few days later, Governor Christine Gregoire signed my extradition papers to Louisiana. That made me and my colleagues the first human being ever extradited to the Bayou State for allegedly violating its online gambling law.

By NICHOLAS G. JENKINS
GUEST COLUMNIST

Soon two colleagues and I may be hauled off to Louisiana in shackles. Our “crime”? I founded and they work for Betcha.com, a Seattle-based person-to-person betting Web site on which, acting with the Washington State Gambling Commission, a Louisiana state trooper accepted four bets. Our take: 70 cents. The trooper says the patent-pending Betcha.com violates Louisiana’s online gambling law. We think Betcha.com is legal, and in July we filed a lawsuit against the WSGC to get a state judge’s take. Our hearing is scheduled for Nov. 9.

Gov. Chris Gregoire, who bet openly against the governors of North Carolina and Pennsylvania in the Seahawks ’06 Super Bowl run, can stop the extraditions. She should.

Betcha already has paid dearly for being located in Washington. The ultra-aggressive WSGC demanded that we shut Betcha down and cough up our revenue 13 days after we launched. The WSGC was working with Louisiana at the time, but Betcha saw no action from the Bayou state until the trooper bet — 32 minutes after we notified the WSGC about our lawsuit. That raises an inference of retaliation. The WSGC raided our office and seized our computer equipment, but kept our lawsuit quiet when it obtained the necessary search warrant. Then it launched a forfeiture action — while our action was pending. (That happened within days of a judge’s ruling that the WSGC acted arbitrarily and capriciously in a suit against another in-state employer.)

A King County prosecutor alleged under oath that we fled Louisiana in July to avoid arrest. Problem: My colleagues have never been to Louisiana, and I was last there in 1994. After we filed our brief in September, the WSGC requested more time to weigh Betcha.com against the gambling laws it’s supposed to know. While we wait, at least two U.S.-based startups have launched competing Web sites.

Sending us to Louisiana over 70 cents would be piling on. We may not leave Louisiana anytime soon — after all, we’ve allegedly fled arrest once before. It would also be unprecedented. Louisiana has reportedly issued arrest warrants for more than fifty people for allegedly violating its online gambling law, but no one’s been extradited. The closest Louisiana came to nabbing someone was in 2006, when Peter Dicks of UK-based Sportingbet PLC was arrested at New York’s JFK Airport. Then-Gov. George Pataki refused to extradite.

Sparing us would not get us out of the woods. Louisiana authorities will not drop the warrants, so we cannot travel internationally. A traffic stop may result in arrest and extradition. (We’ve already been to jail for this debacle — me twice.) Sportingbet paid $400,000 to a Louisiana parish to drop four Sportingbet warrants. Louisiana will probably start our bidding somewhere in that neighborhood. For 70 cents.

If Gregoire needs a reason to spare us other than it’s the right thing to do, there’s the law. Louisiana’s online gambling law is almost certainly unconstitutional. Or she can look to the shortcomings in the extradition papers — there are many. Governors often cite paperwork problems to decline extraditions — it happened last week when the governor of a Southeast state refused to extradite a woman wanted by Oklahoma. The Southeast state that refused extradition? Yup — Louisiana.

Nicholas G. Jenkins is a Seattle native and founder of Betcha.com. He is a graduate of Burien’s John F. Kennedy Memorial High School, the University of Washington and the Georgetown University Law Center.

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Column: “The Short, Sad Life of My Reagan/Bush Bumper Sticker”

Ed. note: I penned this one after President Reagan died in 2004.

I’ve often wondered how the left co-opted the descriptor “tolerant.” To most people on my side of the fence, the average liberal is slightly more tolerant than a Gestapo member. After my latest experience in Toleranceville – that Left Coast hometown of mine, Seattle, Washington – I decided to wonder in column.

I must confess that what happened didn’t seem particularly Earth-shattering at first. Some clown ripped a “Reagan/Bush ’84″ bumper sticker off my car. Putting it there was supposed to be my most visible step yet out of the ideological closet. There aren’t many “out” conservatives in these parts percentagewise, and being one is like being a cross-dressing Marine at boot camp – better to keep it on the down low. President Reagan’s death reminded me that a good American – like him — stands strong, resolute and proud. “My driver’s conservative,” the sticker would tell drivers behind me. “And he’s damn proud of it.”

It was bad enough that some yahoo took my sticker. What’s worse was that it only survived on my bumper for three hours. At most. I put it there at 3:30 pm. By 6:30, after driving all of one mile and parking my car on a very public street for about an hour, it was gone. So sometime between 5:30 and 6:30, some self-appointed guardian of All Things Fit for Public Viewing decided that my expression of Right Pride wasn’t so fit. Three hours. John Kerry takes longer to flip flop.

In hindsight, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. The left’s “Take Back America” theme is, at bottom, a message of vigilantism — President Bush stole their country under cover of night (via an election), and they have an inalienable right to take it back. Their political leaders have slightly more room for the right than National Socialists had for Jews in the early years. Indeed, Howard Dean said he wanted to break up the Fox News Channel on ideological grounds. And now Tom Harkin wants Rush Limbaugh off Armed Forces Radio.

Their foot soldiers are more belligerent. In my hometown, Tolerant Ones vandalized Starbucks stores at the WTO rally with the same vigor that young Nazis went after synagogues on Kristallnacht — and the police let them. A guy who lives a few miles north of me has had his car keyed, his house egged, and his mail box blown up – several times. His crime is having a “Bush/Cheney” sign in his front yard. In truth, the left’s message is “Take Back America . . . by any means necessary.” If those means happen to include vandalizing other people’s private property – so be it.

As troubling as losing my “Reagan/Bush ’84″ sticker was, the reaction of my supposedly tolerant friends was even more so. One friend – she bright and articulate, but just this side of Karl Marx — said I should feel lucky: the Tolerant One could have keyed my car door or slashed my tires or busted my windows. To which I wondered aloud whether blacks in the South felt lucky when the KKK burned their houses instead of killing them altogether. Another card-carrying lefty pal suggested with a straight face that a fellow right-side-of-the-fencer took the sticker for his own private collection. To which I replied: it’s possible that John Kerry didn’t care about the net worth of his two multi-gajillionaire wives when he married them – but I doubt it. A fellow rightie straightened me out. She told me that conservative bumper stickers don’t actually go on bumpers anymore, at least in the Northwest. If you want it to last, you have to tape it to the inside of the car’s back window.

Don’t get me wrong. My world isn’t over – yet. If losing my six dollar “Reagan/Bush ’84″ bumper sticker is the worst thing that happens to me, I’ll be okay. It’s still outrageous. In America, we’re supposed to be free to express ourselves – especially, our political selves. Other people are supposed to tolerate that expression. That is, more than anything else, the very essence of being “American.” If the best conservatives can hope for is to get by without their tires being slashed, then the war in Iraq isn’t the only war we should be worried about. Vandalizing private property wasn’t right when good ol’ boys were burning crosses in front yards, and it isn’t right now.

My fear is that this was a foreshadowing of something worse, like the banning of “insensitive” political signage altogether. Can’t happen in America, you say? We’re well on the way. In America today, many businesses, schools, apartment complexes and universities ban the American flag, lest some non-Americans feel offended. The Koran is required reading to get into the University of North Carolina (a public university), lest incoming freshmen be insensitive to the plight of fellow Muslim students. In many schools nationwide, fifth- and sixth graders are required to pray to Allah to make them “sensitive” to Muslim students post 9-11. Here in Seattle, municipal employees got the word from above not to wish co-workers “Merry Christmas,” lest they offend each other. All this in a country whose Constitution supposedly protects political and religious freedom. Is the specter of political signage being banned in certain “tolerant” towns – maybe Seattle — really so outlandish? Say, on “sensitivity” or “public safety” grounds? I don’t think so.

Funny thing is, if I was a homosexual and “Reagan/Bush ’84″ was one of those rainbow stickers, the left would scream about gay intolerance and I’d be labeled a hate crime victim. If I was a black and someone ripped off my Black Power bumper sticker, they’d say my civil rights were violated. But you won’t see that kind of reaction when the victim of the self-appointed Bumper Sticker Police is — like me — a heterosexual, Christian, conservative, Reagan-loving white male. Out on the left, tolerance is a one way street.

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