Firestone Forensics

Wow, that kid might end up having a pretty good career...

Bob Harig summed it up this way:

And it's a thing of beauty when McIlroy is on, his drives soaring into the sky, landing out of

sight. McIlroy led the field in driving distance this week, averaging 317 yards off the tee. And he was tied for first in greens in regulation, hitting 57 of 72 for the week.

I'm not sure where Harig got his 317 yard figure, as The PGATour.com statistics page has Rory's average drive at 334.8 yards, a non-trivial difference seemingly more consistent with the numbers bandied about by the CBS crew.

I had to head back over to the club shortly before 4:00 yesterday (Teaser: It was for an event I'll be blogging about later), and with the 90-minute rain delay was only able to see the leaders play the first hole.  Rory hit a crooked drive and found himself partially blocked by trees.  After he punched a low shot under the trees that bounded up to about 3-feet, I knew that Sergio was in trouble.  I didn't know until later that he also birdied that second and third holes, dismissing Sergio's three-shot lead in minutes.

This creates a bit of a dilemma for me.  I had previously suggested that Rory should be watched at Valhalla, both because of the anticipated course conditions as well as the fact that Rory, while not the most consistent player out there, tends to win in bunches.  But how much is enough?  In fact, in the midst of writing this 'graph a missive arrived from our good friend and died-in-the-wool Ulsterman Lowell Courtney, who in the midst of his justifiable pride at his countryman's success had this note of realism:

Rory: it comes, it goes, it comes again. Bet you he doesn't land the PGA. No-one can keep it going like that these days, not even a reincarnate Byron Nelson.

So, pace Lowell, why did it come now?  Two theories out there this morning, the first from Harig:

For the true golf geeks, for the ones who follow the intricacies of a golfer and his equipment

and the sometimes maddening twists and turns of what goes in and out of his golf bag, Rory McIlroy's run of recent excellence may be traced to last fall.

That's when he settled on the Nike driver and ball combination he is using now, no small aspect of his impressive game at the moment.

Yeah, I'm thinking he'll stick with that for a bit... But Karen Crouse, writing in Pravda, had this moment as well:

In May, at a tournament that Nicklaus hosts in Ohio, McIlroy’s second-round score had been 15 shots higher than his opening 63. Nicklaus thought he might be able to help with what had become a troubling pattern, and in the course of their conversation, he made a few swings to demonstrate how McIlroy’s hips were getting ahead of his hands on his downswing.

Others had commented that McIlroy seemed to be getting stuck, but none of them had won 18 majors like Nicklaus. Whatever Nicklaus showed McIlroy, it clicked — literally and metaphorically. 

“It’s so funny,” McIlroy, 25, said Saturday. “He got up out of his seat and started giving me this lesson, and his hip creaked.”

Rory, that's uncalled for.  We don't take cheap shots at the old guys on this blog... I don't want to have to remind you of this again.

Sergio continues his streak of exceptional play resulting in high finishes but nothing better... There have always been guys whose careers are defined by near misses, Tom Weiskopf comes immediately to mind, and the Spaniard's career seems in that mold.  He obviously still has time to change that perception, but it might behoove him to make his move soon.

It's not helpful that odd stuff seems to seek him out, as per yesterday's ring incident:

When I picked up the broadcast on Tivo later, the guys were making all sorts of jewelry jokes that went over my head.  But the story has a happy ending, and Sergio comes off as a mensch for making sure he had contact information to follow up.

Now, shall we deal with Tiger, for whom the plot sickens?  Here's the shot that apparently sent his back into spasms:

From the after-action accounts, it was the landing that he failed to stick that caused the distress, and of course that's a mandatory points reduction from the judges.  And here's the final straw, the drive on No. 9 and the wincing in pain that's become an all-too-familiar scene:

And lest you think Tiger was having a good week, Shackelford had posted video of Tiger dropping an F-bomb on cameraman who made the mistake of getting a bit too close.  Keep it classy, Tiger!  As Shack predicted, the Ponte Vedra Family took time out from parsing whether Dustin Johnson is actually on suspension to scrub the video from YouTube.

And the golf, it wasn't particularly Tigeresque either...On Friday he hit all of four fairways, and one wonders how many of those were with the driver.  And on Saturday he hit all of seven greens...  As of last night, Notah Begay, a chum of the Striped One, was reporting that playing in the PGA is not yet out of the question.  But if he's going to play as he has in his three events since returning from back surgery, it's not clear that anything meaningful is being accomplished.

Do we think at this point that Tom Watson is happy he took the job as U.S. Ryder Cup Savior Captain?  Well, at least we have some modest good news for Tom as relates to another Cup stalwart.  Phil Mickelson was in the midst of a lost week when he had these comments after his Saturday round:

Asked whether he felt there was enough time to put things together, Mickelson said: "We'll see.

It would be out of nowhere for me to play well. You just never know."

All of this came on a day when Mickelson broke par at Firestone Country Club for the first time this week -- and for just the third time in his past 14 rounds here -- but still found himself languishing in a tie for 44th at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. 

"I really thought after the Scottish [where he tied for 11th] and British [T-24] that I was on to something," Mickelson said. "I didn't get a chance to work much the last week and a half. I didn't hit any drivers or 3-woods. I just hit short irons and stuff."

Of course he goes out Sunday and lights it up with a 62, including ten birdies.  Is this a crazy game or what?  Of course one round means exactly nothing in the cosmic scheme of things, but when you're clutching at straws one can't be particular about things.  If there were any lingering doubt, I suspect that the combination of Tiger's travails and Phil's pyrotechnics have likely secured Phil a Gleneagles tee time.

As an aside, CBS showed a graphic of the Ryder Cup points list during yesterday's broadcast, in which they scrubbed DJ out of it.  Now we all understand that he's not available for entirely personal reasons, but it had a Soviet-era feel to me, akin to when they scrubbed disgraced party officials out of the photos of the May Day parade viewing stand.  Would they have done the same if it was, say a back injury?

Lastly, did you catch Bubba's drive on Saturday, that clocked in per Shotlink at 424 yards?  That's the longest on Tour this year, blowing by a Webb Simpson drive of 397 yards at Kapalua.  And did I mention how soft it was in Akron this week?

 

He's Bubba-long indeed, but he's also unfortunately Bubba-churlish.  As we've previously noted, the PGA is doing a retro-cool thing and holding a long-drive competition at the PGA Championship.  I'm not crazy with the format, as it's limited to one shot on the tenth hole during Tuesday practice rounds, because you have to be sensitive to Tour players' packed schedules and all... but even that is too much for the delicate flower that is our Bubba:

“I’m not going to do it,” Watson told GolfChannel.com after his round.

“I’m there to play golf, not to hit it far,” said the namesake of BubbaGolf. “I’ve got to practice. I’ve never been to the course. I don’t need to worry about a long drive on the 10th hole.”

Sheesh!  DJ's out having his nostrils sewn shut and Bubba can't be bothered to swing for the fences on one practice hole?  Because that's something he never does.  Almost makes me happy that he made bogey on the 424 yard drive above, proof positive of the existence of a higher being.