News and Notes

With a hectic schedule much as slipped through the cracks... let's see if we can get you caught up on all the strange doings of the last few days.

The Revolution Will Come with Statistics - We've covered the work of statistical guru Mark Broadie in a series of posts.  Broadie, you'll recall, developed the Strokes Gained-Putting statistic now employed by the Tour, and we've got a new one for you:

PGA Tour officials confirmed this week it will launch the new strokes gained/tee to green statistic on Monday following the Barclays, adding to their already growing repertoire of online

metrics. 

Strokes gained/tee to green will sit alongside the tour's current stats like greens in regulation and fairways hit, and like strokes gained/putting, the metric was developed in conjunction with Columbia University professor Mark Broadie. The tour has been gathering this data since 2008 through its ShotLink system, and will publish the statistic starting from that year on its website.

"This is the next step of our evolution," Steve Evans, the tour's head of Information Systems and overseer of the ShotLink system, which is underpinned by CDW, said. "But we're trying to create new performance metrics that are more telling than some of the current statistics."

Initially this metric will be a simple calculation of the player's actual scores plus/minus Strokes Gained-Putting, but the value will increase dramatically when it's expanded to separate each aspect of the tee-to-green game.   Any guesses who will lead this category?  Here are the results from the start of the season through the Bridgestone:

Rank	Player	Average
1	Sergio Garcia	2.160
2	Rory McIlroy	1.936
3	Jim Furyk	1.639
4	Hideki Matsuyama	1.622
5	Bubba Watson	1.511
6	Justin Rose	1.465
7	Graham DeLaet	1.267
8	Charl Schwartzel	1.263
9	Ryan Moore	1.239
10	Matt Kuchar	1.223

That is per 18 holes, so Sergio is +/- nine shots better than the field every week tee to green.  Tell me again how good his putting has become.... Furyk suprises me, given how short a hitter he is, but otherwise it's guys known for being able to golf their balls.

One is the Loneliest Number - No comment from Sean, but Butch and Hank are in agreement as to who should be Tiger's next swing coach.  The choice may surprise you, in that both believe he doesn't need one.  Rex Hoggard had this from Butch yesterday:

“No I would not and he’s not going to call and ask,” Harmon said. “I don’t think he needs a swing coach. If I were advising Tiger I’d tell him, ‘You’re the greatest player that ever lived, just go to the range and hit shots.’”

Then Hank had this to say on Morning Drive:

“He certainly knows enough,” Haney said Tuesday on “Morning Drive". “I think he’d probably

be better off just going and doing it himself. He’s the one that he’ll listen to the most. He’s the one that he’s always listened to the most.” 

Though the former world No. 1 has all the tools to go it alone – access to TrackMan, an understanding of video technology and the swing, etc. – Haney said doing so could potentially pose an issue, because of Woods’ tendency to “get off on tangents and work on things that aren’t really part of the plan.”

“That’s the biggest challenge that Tiger would face in helping himself,” Haney said. “He has trouble staying on point and staying on a plan. ... It’s making a plan and staying on point, that is where a coach really can help, if he can do that.”

That makes it unanimous, no?  As I noted in my prior post, I've always been a bit surprised by his over-reliance on Butch/Hank/Sean, especially as they do you no good inside the ropes.  

How Are Those Playoffs Going? - You gotta be in it to win it, right?  Errr not so fast, as it turns out.  While the Deutsche Bank is supposed to have a field of 100 players, turns out not everyone is coming to the party:

The Deutsche Bank Championship now has a smaller field than the Masters.

OK I wouldn't have used that lede, since the Masters field includes amateurs and former champions well past their sell-by date.  But still...

Justin Rose and Sergio Garcia are getting some rest during a hectic month that ends with the Ryder Cup. Graeme McDowell withdrew because his wife gave birth to a girl on Monday, and Paul Casey withdrew because his wife is due with their first child next Monday. 

Jason Dufner withdrew with a neck injury. Dustin Johnson is on a "voluntary leave" for "personal challenges."

First of all Commissioner Ratched, I don't notice any NB teams deciding to give the second round of their playoffs a miss.  So the whole thing is way lame...

But of greater importance, anyone pick up on the fact that the guys missing it for convenience (i.e., not a baby or injury or nose problem), are Euro Ryder Cuip stalwarts.  They would rather forego one of the weekly money grabs to ensure they're not burned out come late September.  Meanwhile Captain Tom couldn't even get one of our guys to take a day off to go see the course at Gleneagles.  Any care to guess which team will be better prepared?

Phil Being Phil - Thank God this wasn't broadcast by CBS over the weekend, otherwise we might have been treated to Sir Nick's further movie reviews:

Phil Mickelson felt like a betting man on Saturday as he stood left of the 18th tee at Ridgewood C.C. at The Barclays. Knowing he wasn’t going to make the third-round secondary cut and facing a second shot from deep rough, Mickelson decided to make the home hole interesting by making a side bet with a fan in his gallery. 

The bet? Mickelson had to get up and down from the rough for birdie or pay up. 

“Just $20. I gave him 4-to-1 odds,” Mickelson said after the round. “I would have made $5 if I made birdie. A par was a push; bogey, I lost; birdie, I would have won.”

Unfortunately this will have him in Dutch with the aforementioned Nurse Ratched.  The reader will understand that I hate these kind of stories because it forces me to act like an adult.  But while it's obviously good fun and it's likely that the loss won't dent Phil's lifestyle, you really can't have this going on.  I know, it gives me chest pains to have to sound like a scold, but was Phil gonna take the fiver if he made birdie?

On a stream of consciousness basis, in the old days Sam Snead reportedly paid all his gambling losses by check, secure in the knowledge that the vast majority of said checks would end up behind glass in the lucky stiff's living room.

Trick Shot Central - Kudos to Shackelford for posting this trick shot from Clarkie Carroll after ten months of chemo:

Yes, of course we've seen better, but probably never enjoyed it more.  Hope to hear more from Clarkie going forward...

Ulster Updates - We'll soon be heading in that direction, though most of our time will be spent in the Republic of Ireland on this trip.  But of course we want to be current as relates to their favorite sons, and we just happen to have a couple of items.

In the first instance, Pravda's John Koblin checks in on the jilted one and finds her gracious and in good spirits, with this to say about Rors:

“I was like: ‘How can you be so nice?’” Ms. [Serena] Williams said. “She said: ‘I could never hate him. He’s been a big part of my life and even if I wanted to, I couldn’t hate him.’ I was really influenced by that.”

And here's the wrap of the piece:

“It’s important in relationships to talk,” she said. “If there’s a problem, you talk about it. That’s normal. Obviously, I didn’t have that chance. At the end of the day, I couldn’t have done anything different. I couldn’t have done anything more. I gave everything I had. And if that’s not enough, that’s fine. I’ll find someone who will.”

Yes she will.  There' really only one note of profound sadness in the whole matter, that I'll have precious few opportunities to run this picture again in the future:

 It's hard out there for a blogger, and we hate moving on from comedy gold.

In other long-running stories, this came over the wire but has generated no comment:

Graeme McDowell is set to leave Horizon Sports Management to manage his own affairs. In contrast to the acrimonious departure of world No 1 Rory McIlroy from Horizon last year, McDowell insists he’s leaving on good terms when his contract ends on December 31. 

The Ulsterman joined Horizon from Chubby Chandler’s ISM in December 2007 and went on to play in three Ryder Cups and win 11 times, including his first major at the 2010 US Open.

Hmmm...I'm a bit surprised that Shack and others haven't been all over this.  Here's more from the piece that will provide background to anyone new to the story:

The news will be seen as a blow to Horizon Sports management, who have lost McIlroy,Michael Hoey and Gareth Maybin in recent years and now manage only Shane Lowry and Ross Fisher. 

But insiders insist that the McDowell has been ruminating his decision “for months” and that while he was unhappy with the way the McIlroy camp has gone about its business, his decision has no direct connection to the High Court battle between the world No 1 and the boutique agency set up by Conor Ridge. 

The Dublin agency has countersued McIlroy for $3 million in unpaid fees and damages after the four-time major winner left them in May last year claiming he signed his contract under “undue influence” when he was just 22 years old and inexperienced. 

Horizon also dispute McIlroy’s claim that he paid more than $6.8 million in fees which his lawyers claim was “many times greater” than the norm.

The gist of Rory's dispute is that he found himself on commercially-inferior terms to his former BFF Graeme, despite promises that they would be treated identically, and that McDowell had an ownership interest in the agency.  It's also a bit of a surprise that this would surface just as Graeme and his wife are welcoming the arrival of their first child.  Stay tuned to this station for further developments.