Flotsam and Jetsam™

It's early Monday morning evening (sorry folks for not getting this done this morning, but the powder was screaming my name) in Park City, so let's take a spin around the golf universe and see who else we can piss off assist with thoughtful constructive criticism:

Pebble Beach Wrap :

Park City is a good spot for me to watch most sports programming, such as the Olympics, since it comes on early enough for this early-riser to stay up.  Unfortunately, it's the opposite for golf, which is typically almost finished before I get in front of a TV after a ski day.  Yesterday was an exception though, and I caught most of the CBS broadcast from Pebble, and have a few (Ed. If Only) observations.

The TV coverage had its usual mix of the good, the bad and the curious....

• The time spent watching is almost warranted just by the blimp shots.  One has to be relieved that they can still give us aerial shots of Cypress Point despite its racist, misogynistic membership policies.  Which, by the way, they aren't, but that no longer seems to matter.  They rightfully paid homage to Jim Langley, the longtime head pro at Cypress who recently passed, and gave us that wonderful view of the three oceanfront holes.  But why do they only talk about No. 16?  Admittedly it's one of the most memorable holes in all of golf, but No. 17 isn't exactly chopped liver.

• Faldo and Jim Nancy-boy (as the bride calls him, so she gets your e-mails) seemed to be falling all over themselves to talk about how strong the field was, so I guess they got their talking points from Tim.  Ummmm....really?  It's evolved into an embarrassingly weak field, and I fear will only get worse.  Who would think that 6-hour rounds, inept sandbagging (more on that in a bit) amateurs, cold windy weather and putting over bumpy poa greens would bother the Orlando set?  The solution is beyond the scope of this post, but the first step is to admit that you have a problem.

• Gettin' it to the clubhouse is a b***h!  Sometimes it's the hardest thing in golf, and sometimes it's interesting to watch these guys control their emotions.  Kudos to Jimmy Walker for holding it together and putting a good stroke on the putt for the win (especially after the aneurism that's the only excuse for the first putt on the last green).  And a special Unplayable Lies shout-out to Walker for not playing to form and tamping down an imaginary spike mark after the short miss on No. 17.

• And how about Walker's Dyn-o-mite (you knew I couldn't let that pass) season thus far.  Winless in his first 186 starts on tour, he's suddenly won three of his last eight starts.  Is this a great game or what?  The scribes are falling all over themselves to note that he's only the fourth player to win three of his first eight events in a season, the other three being Duval, Mickelson and Woods, the latter of whom has done it 114 times or some such thing.  Of course that metric plays fast and easy with the concept of a season, but so be it...

• Another great blimp shot was of the new/old tenth tee just to the golfer's right of the ninth green.  One of my criticisms of Pebble is that while Nos. 9 and 10 are both indisputably great golf holes, they're essentially the same golf hole.  Talk about your mulligans...  Now it's not necessarily anyone's fault, as erosion cost them the original tee.  So a thumbs up to all involved in the effort to restore the original designers' vision and recreate the left-to-right angle of the tee shot.  The problem is that there's so little land left that the new/old tee box is within steps of the ninth green.  Using it in the 1919 Open would clearly add to pace of play issues, as those in the ninth fairway would have to wait until the tee cleared.  And the Pebble greens are so small that a left pin when using that tee box doesn't help to any meaningful extent. 

More ramblings about Pebble and other such nonsense after the jump

• I love this.  Ashley Mayo gives us a look at Dustin Johnson's yardage book for Pebble.  The second hole is below, but do click through as after a jump she's got quite a few other holes.  I've long thought that professional yardage books are as much art as science, and this doesn't disappoint.

This is the second hole, a short Par 5 this week, but a two-shotter in the Open.

• To their credit, there was some discussion of the changes needed to the greens before 1919.  It's much less of an issue for the Crosby AT&T, because February conditions are typically much softer and the Pro-Am only needs two pin positions.  Because of the three-course rotation, pins stay in the same location (in reality, because of the traffic they move them a foot or two each day) for the first three days.  But an Open requires five locations on each green (they need one in their back pocket for a potential playoff), and that doesn't account for practice rounds.  On No. 14, the most pressing issue, they basically have one "cuppable" location under U.S. Open green conditions.  But still no discussion of No. 17, where the best players in the world can't hold the green when the pin is in the back of the hourglass.

• Don't know if anyone else noticed this, but Pat Perez' tee shot on the short No. 7 was a really cool swing.  It was as close to a chip shot swing as I've ever seen with a ball pegged.  I'd love to know what club he had in his hands, but he put it pin high and made the putt.  Unfortunately it's not included on the Tour's highlight package:

• An official UL kudo to Jordan Spieth who rebounded from his no-good, awful Saturday 78 with his third 67 of the week on Sunday, good enough for a T4.  Three 67's will typically get it done, but the bad round needs to be around par.

• What to do with the amateurs?  FWIW the SI gang had a video Tour Confidential discussion of it here.  My take is that each events need something to distinguish it from the mind-numbing sameness of the week-to-week drudgery of the Tour.  This event, with its ties to Bing and the rat pack, and somehow that needs to be preserved.  But, and I say this as someone who specifically avoided Saturday's coverage, The Most Painful Day in Televised Golf™, Ray Romano and George Lopez remind no one of Jack Lemmon and a young Clint Eastwood.  I've had surprising difficulty finding some of the old, iconic photos of the chain holding Lemmon while he played from the ice plants, but the message is that it used be fun to see the celebrities... with apologies to Gloria Swanson, I do think the pictures have gotten small.  But if you're going to hold a competition, at least....

• Make the handicaps real.  My understanding is that the old celebrities used to police the handicaps, and anyone for whom the "S" word was used was not there the following year.  So perhaps like you, I saw the conclusion of the amateur comp along with the PGA event and saw John Harkey, Jr., about whom I know absolutely nothing, roll in a ten-footer make a natural birdie (net eagle) on Pebble's famed 18th to win the Pro-Am.  We also saw their competition for the Pro-Am, Rory Sabbatini and amateur Blake Mycoskie cough it up playing on the much more difficult finishing holes on the front nine.  Now kudos to Rory for seeming to grind to the finish, even though he missed the cut in the Tour event.  But there used to be a game when U.S. Open pairings were announced to guess the a******e group, which typically meant looking for Rory's name.

But what about Mr. Mycoskie, founder of Tom's Shoes.  Shackelford is all over it:

One reader noted that Mycoskie's Austin Country Club index had him playing one round between January 2013 and January 2014, then a bunch of "Internet aways".

Reader Jack writes:  "According to the AT&T website, he gets 11 strokes as an amateur.  His GHIN handicap index is a 9.2.  On day one of the tournament, Rory shoots a 67, but the team scores a net 61.  That puts the team 11 under. Rory is responsible for -5, which means the am had to shoot 6 under par net.  On day 2, the pair cards a net 59, with Rory shooting a 72. That means Mycoskie had to shoot net 11 UNDER.  What is going on here?  On day three, they net a 69. Rory shot a 77- five over!  That now means the amateur had to make up the net diff, which is a net 8 UNDER.  Hey, I'm a 3.8 and I do not think I could shoot that well on those courses even after playing them several times a week for a season. This kind of sandbagging is bad for golf and it makes the whole tradition of pro-am at Pebble a joke."

How in this day and age is this remotely possible?  Clint, where are you on this?  I actually think watching the amateurs playing in front of the cameras is interesting, as we all know we'd be projectile vomiting in similar circumstances, but a guy who has posted one home score in a year?  I can hear the alarm bells in Park City.

Shackelford has been spending that generous Golf Digest travel budget recently, hitting Miami for the opening of the rebuilt Doral Blue Monster, Orlando for Morning Drive Appearance and lastly to Pinehurst for the USGA Annual Meeting.

• Shackelford expresses some concerns as the USGA's involvement in grow the game initiatives in this post.  I understand that the linkage to commercial interests could potentially be troublesome for the game's ruling body, but I guess I'd have to give more credit to the effectiveness of such efforts to raise any flags.  The latest development on this front is that the USGA has thrown some support to the latest initiative from TaylorMade involving larger cups and non-conforming sticks, but we are not to call such games golf.  So we're going to grow the game of golf by having people play something that we're not going to call golf.  Good luck with that.

• Of greater import, Mike Davis has announced that the USGA will set up Pinehurst No. 2 to play similarly for the lads and ladies. Here's what he means by that:

While the men will play the par-70 layout at 7,500 yards this summer, the length for the women will be approximately 6,700 yards the following week. Davis explained that the goal will be to make the course play similarly for all competitors.

"The idea was on a given hole, if the men are hitting drivers, we want to see the women hit drivers," said Davis. "If the men are hitting, say, 6 to 8-irons for their approach shots, that's what we want women to do."

He added that the key factor in deciding to play the men's event prior to the women's was the putting surfaces, which Davis indicated will roll to 11.5 on the Stimpmeter for both events.

I'm not quite sure what he means in his last point, but I think we all understand that the back-to-back Opens do more for the ladies than the men, creating potential additional interest.  But there's risk to the ladies in that the large crowds for the USGA's signature event will leave behind damage in areas off the major avenues of play.  It might be a good idea for the ladies to hit it straight, and let's all pray for a dry June in the North Carolina sand hills.

• Of greatest importance is that Shack visited the newly renovated Mid-Pines, just down the road from Pinehurst, and proclaims it spectacular.  He's right, of course, which I'm lucky enough to know because I played a round there before our National Country Club Championship event at Pinehurst with Big Break Anthony, Maggot (real name) and a Maggot nephew or cousin.  The restoration is spectacular, and we enjoyed Mid-Pines far more than its better known cousin Pine Needles.  It's also where the golf took place in The Short Game, discussed here (lucky kids).

Shack has all sorts of links in which you might be interested, most notably to Ran Morrissett's review at Golf Club Atlas, which was what convinced us to add it and create a 36 hole day for AC and me.  He's also got a brief slideshow, and here are a couple of my pics:

The view down the first fairway at Mid-Pines.

The Big Bopper pies one down the middle.  The ski hat wasn't just for fashion, as it was barely above freezing in late October in Pinehurst.

Woods wins by two reads the headline, and golfing public lets out a collective sigh of relief that the Striped One has finally turned his game around.  Errrr....not so much, as it turns out that it's Cheyenne Woods, niece of that other guy, who won the Australian Ladies Masters in Queensland, Australia with quite the, what's the word, Tigeresque finish: 

Woods birdied two of the final four holes, closing with a 4-under-par 69 to pull away from hard-charging 17-year-old Australian amateur Minjee Lee at Royal Pines Resort. At 16-under 276, Woods finished two shots ahead of Lee (69) in what boiled down to a back-nine duel between the two.

It's a good win by a good young player who will inevitably be subjected to additional scrutiny because of the familial connection.  Let's hope she's for real, because the LPGA, for which I have a certain fondness, can use all of the glamour and media attention it can muster.  And I'm guessing that this young lady would help: