At The 3/4 Mile Pole

I've not a lot to say about the Players, and even less time in which to say it.  Win-win, I hear my reader(s) mumbling...

I share everyone's amazement at Jordan Spieth, and the anomaly of his bogey-free streak.  He hit it everywhere but the carpark yesterday, and somehow got the little ball into the hole.  That's a useful skill, no?  From Steve DiMeglio's game piece:

And he has looked right at home on the treacherous, diabolical TPC Sawgrass in this week's Players Championship, the PGA Tour's flagship event that features a $10 million purse and a $1.8 million check for the winner. 

Spieth knocked in a 13-foot putt for par on his last hole Saturday to earn a share of first place with Martin Kaymer, who grabbed the pole position with a record-tying course record 63 in the first round and hasn't been out of the top spot on the leaderboard since.

No other player in the field has fewer than four.  Just amazing on THAT course, especially as it continues to firm up.   Gene Wojciechowski had a nice piece on Spieth's relationship with his caddie:

His caddie, Michael Greller, taught sixth grade for 10 years before he quit to work for Spieth.

It is the career move that keeps on giving. 

"Dealing with 30 12-year-olds every day prepared me for Jordan," said Greller, smiling.

Greller turns 37 in June. Spieth turns 21 in July. To Spieth, 37 qualifies as AARP. 

"He always says, `Take your cap off and show your bald spot,"' Greller said. "I tell him he gives me that bald spot." 

Spieth might have contributed to Greller's male pattern baldness during Saturday's round. He was in the rough. He was under trees. He was next to drainage grates. He barely cleared the water. He left putts short. He powered putts long. He pulled the wrong club on No. 18.

The weird incident of the day, the Justin Rose penalty for causing his ball to move, is covered by Brian Wacker.  Here's Justin's explanation of what happened:

"That was a bitter pill to swallow at the end of a battling day," said Rose, who initially backed away from the ball but decided not to call for a rules official after seeing a replay of it on the video board next to the green. "It was a very incredibly spongy, thatchy bit of fairway and the whole surface underneath my wedge gave way. And at that point you make a call, did my ball move, did it just sort of move with the turf and oscillate? 

"As I'm making that determination there's a replay right there and (Sergio Garcia and I) both stared at it and agreed there was zero movement to the golf ball."

See why I think majors should never be contested on Bermuda?  So, Justin and his playing partner came to the same conclusion, that's the end of it, right?  Errr, not so much in this day and age, and Shackelford has dubbed the incident Oscillegate 2 (the first being Tiger's incident last year).

But after more than 30 minutes of looking at it from multiple broadcast feeds in three different trucks -- including one from Sky Sports after European Tour rules official David Probyn phoned in while watching on Sky Sports in Europe -- officials determined that the ball did move. 

"They had a different angle on the other feed; they had a much closer one," said PGA TOUR Vice President of Rules Mark Russell. "It was my view his ball did move."

Afterward, Rose agreed but still didn't sound totally convinced. 

"It literally took zoom in, the whole screen got fragmented, the golf ball was more like a hexagon at this point," he said, holding a blade of grass in his hand. "If it moved (the width of the blade of grass) that's all it moved, but there was a wobble on the screen. Under 50 times magnification in the truck maybe the ball moved a quarter of a dimple toward the toe of the club, which, obviously, if the ball moved, it moved and I get assessed an extra stroke penalty.

Discuss amongst yourselves whether this process has jumped the shark.  I can't see anything in this, but Golf central posted this video:

Logic says that the winner should come from the final group, give the separation from the field.  But the hardest thing in golf is to get to the clubhouse, and this course has a rather unique final gauntlet for the lads, so buckle your seat belts and enjoy the ride.