Rory Wrap

It's been a rich, full week on the Rory beat (Ed: More like the Rory Beatdown), but this is, God willing, the final word on Rorygate.

Writing in the Telegraph on Saturday, James Corrigan gives us further details on the actions of David Renwick, who was caddying for Ricardo Gonzalez at the time:

Renwick, who was standing 30 yards away, noticed McIlroy’s left foot on the line of the pathway when he played his approach, but did not have time to shout.

Renwick – one of the most experienced caddies in the game, who has worked for the likes of Vijay Singh, José María Olazábal and Lee Westwood – decided nothing would be gained by informing McIlroy of the breach until after the round.

That answers my only remaining questions about the incident, and I have absolutely no issues with Renwick protecting the field.

Rory and David Renwick leaving the 18th green on Saturday.  We now know the subject of this conversation.

Shackelford has two posts on the subject.  The second includes this quote from the new-to-me Missy Jones, that Rory should be required to write thirty times on the chalkboard:

Rory’s ball on the second hole came to rest on a spectator crosswalk that was deemed to be ground under repair. The committee did that as a SERVICE to the players, not as a trap to give them penalties! McIlroy could have played the ball as it lie under Rule 25-1, but he elected to take a drop within one club length of his nearest point of relief no nearer the hole. The rule says the player must take complete relief, which means that if you CHOOSE to get out of that ground under repair, you need to make sure that the lie of your ball, your stance and the area of your intended swing are completely free of junk. Not only that, but since he made a drop that had his foot still in the ground under repair, Rule 20-6 (we call it the eraser rule for a reason) would have let him pick it up and make a proper drop with no penalty! The rules do this as a PROTECT to the player and aren’t being “nit-picky” as I’ve read in other articles.

In the prior post, Shack amusingly conflates caddy David Renwick with the editor of the New Yorker, with whom I grew up in bucolic Hillsdale, NJ.  More substantively, he discusses Renwick's handling of the awkward incident.  There is much back and forth on these Interwebs, including this Alex Micelli piece, dateline La Quinta, CA, as to whether Renwick should have told Rory immediately and as to whether he should have let the grownups, i.e., the players, handle the matter.  Shack smells class struggles in this latter discussion, likening the caddy-player relation to that of Carson and Lord Grantham (that's a Downton Abbey reference for those living in a bubble the last few years).

I find no fault with the way Renwick handled the matter, which is not to deny that it's arguable as to whether or not to wait to disclose the issue to the player (Renwick feared affecting Rory's play, though it is equally possible to make the counter-argument that the player has a right to know where he stands).  It is far more important that the matter be addressed, than in how it is addressed.

I was going to post the European Tour highlight video, so that anyone who hadn't seen Phil's Flop Shot (heh) could do so.  Alas and alack, despite Al Z.'s heroic efforts, I'm not having any success embedding non-YouTube videos.  However, I can offer you this link, where Al has posted an early draft of this post at his dormant Blogger blog, video included, under the taunting title If I Can Do This, Why Can't Scott Simpson?  Feel free to post any comments you think appropriate on Al's blog, but in the immortal words of Ron Burgundy, keep it classy.

Since we're video challenged at the moment, let's go another direction.  Did anyone catch a gander of the Abu Dhabi clubhouse over the weekend?  The Emirates are known, first and foremost, for their tasteful, understated architecture, but get a load of this:

Quite the modest little clubhouse, no?  But what, pray tell, is the Chrysler Fiat logo doing in the eagle's chest?

It occurred to me that a post on ugly golf clubhouses might work, though I'll need to crowd source some entries.  Anyone that can think of a particularly ugly clubhouse (and I'm all over Royal Birkdale), please drop me a note.

UPDATE:  Al Z. informs me that he has deleted the blog post referenced above.   This is an extremely quick instance of the phenomenon that bloggers refer to as link rot.