PGA Post Mortem

So, with an additional 24 hours to cogitate, what conclusions are being drawn about the exciting PGA?

The New Prince of Darkness

Like me, Shackelford continues to mull over that crazy, chaotic conclusion to the PGA on Sunday, mulling the implications of what could easily have been in this post.

Many have looked at this from the perspective of Phil Mickelson and Rickie Fowler. Neither

man looked particularly thrilled with the situation for any host of legitimate reasons—too dark, too chaotic, unfair by putting them on the spot, and worst of all, allowing McIlroy to avoid the 18th tee wait they endured. Rory did not have to stand on that imposing 18th tee for the same amount of time under the pressure of a major. And it's a tee shot where he had flirted with the lake multiple times, including that final tee shot. 

So instead of focusing on the peculiarity of the situation for Mickelson and Fowler, consider what would have happened if things had gone the other way: McIlroy gets the approval of PGA officials to hit and his tee shot lands in the water. He loses the PGA after playing a brilliant stretch on the back nine. Maybe afterwards he laments rushing the shot even though it was absurdly dark. He realizes in the chaos of the moment he was not set and cost himself a major. All of this was brought on by delays and a rushed finish precipitated in part by late starting times to get the best possible television rating.

As I noted yesterday, McIlroy's birdie on No. 17 took the whole lot of them off the hook.  My guess is that if Rory has only a one-shot lead on the 18th tee, meaning that he needs birdie on the ever-so-reachable Par-5  18th because surely either Rickie or Phil or both will birdie it, that he walks in and comes back the next morning to finish.  I'm less sure but might still guess that Phil and Rickie do the same, knowing they need eagle and will have freshly rolled greens.

Once Rory made his birdie on No. 17, it was for all intents and purposes over.  Phil thinks he can eagle anything, but he also knows that Rory can easily make birdie there.  And in all the concern about Phil and Rickie being thrown under the bus, did anybody think to ask whether they considered stopping play?

Shack does note that all golf events play with fire in this regard:

The PGA is not alone in this practice. The Masters, USGA and R&A all push the boundaries of sanity with late starts, but the R&A has now shown they are willing to budge to protect the integrity of their tournament. The others have emphasized the late television window and mostly have escaped a disaster.

No question in that regard, though the U.S. Open and PGA have a bit more latitude than the Masters folks, as daylight is short in April.  But no doubt that had Adam Scott missed his winning birdie putt last year, there wasn't enough light for another hole.  And earlier in the piece Shack gives props to the R&A for moving up tee times on Saturday at Hoylake, allowing that to be completed.

There's a bunch of thoughts I have here, not necessarily fully thought through.  First, why not at least move up the early starters to clear the logjam on the golf course?  I understand that an hour plus break in the action will be annoying, but when the course was finally ready for play to resume, there were ninety minutes of tee times before Rory.

Secondly, I certainly believe that the integrity of the competition, which we can all agree was sacrificed on the 18th hole Sunday, should take precedence over television contracts and ratings.  But I also acknowledge that everyone has a shared interest in maximizing the number of eyeballs.  If they moved tee times up an hour or ninety minutes, would it be such a travesty if the event was broadcast "plausibly live" to conclude at the stipulated 6:00 or 7:00 EDT?

I frequently Tivo tournaments and can attest to the occasional difficulty arriving home with no unwanted information (Colin King, I'm calling you out on that one).  But an hour is a different animal, as folks will be in their recliners before they know of the change in schedules.  Remember, in most cases the result won't be what we saw on Sunday, it will be a Monday finish as at Baltusrol in 2005.  And that hurts everyone, though perhaps Shack's counter-factual, i.e., Rory rinsing his tee shot, would have been still worse.

We'll move on, but I do hope that Ted Bishop, now known as the Prince of Darkness, takes this to heart and is more cautious in the future.

Nobody Told me There'd Be Math

So class, can anyone tell me how Rory won?  By that I mean where did he separate himself from the field and build his margin of victory?  It turns out that our old friend Mark Broadie has a piece at PGATour.com with the facts:

McIlroy led in strokes gained from the long game (shots starting outside of 100 yards from the hole), gaining nearly three strokes per round on the field. That represented 70 percent of his total gain of 4.1 strokes per round against the field. He was second in strokes gained-driving and fifth in stokes gained from approach shots, with each contributing a gain of 1.4 strokes per round. (About the only reason McIlroy wasn't first in strokes gained-driving was his tee shot on the fourth hole in the third round that led to a penalty stroke.)

Any guesses as to who was first in strokes gained-driving?  That would be mysterious Frenchman Victor Dubuisson.  Broadie continues:

Several of McIlroy's shots on the back nine were strokes gained standouts. From the fairway

Mark Broadie

on the par-5 10th hole, McIlroy gained 1.2 strokes with his 280-yard second shot, which left him a 7-footer for eagle. McIlroy said the "eagle to get back to one behind with eight holes to play was massive." On the par-4 13th hole, McIlroy gained 0.8 strokes with his shot from 91 yards that left him a 2-footer for birdie.

It's way cool that he can break it down on a shot-by-shot basis, and I'm guessing that when you gain 1.8 shots against the field with, you know, one shot, that's pretty meaningful.  It's a great piece with tables showing how the top finishers compared in each category, really first rate stuff.  Oh, and for you that can't get enough of train wrecks, Broadie answers a question in the comments with the data for one of the guys that didn't make the cut.  Quite frankly, the numbers are so bad that I'll assume it was one of the club pros:

Tiger Woods: Total -1.7 (73), Drive -0.6 (68), Approach -0.9 (72), Short 0.9 (12), Putt -1.1 (74). Ranks relative to 74 players who made the cut.

For those keeping a scorecard at home, that's 74th in putting as compared to the 74 players that hung around for the weekend.  Remind me why Tom Watson is staying in touch with this guy until September 2nd...

Ratings Rehash

Since we sold our soul to the television network, was anyone actually watching?  For once the answer is a resounding yes:

Ratings for Rory McIlroy's PGA Championship victory were up 36 percent from last year’s tournament, CBS Sports announced. 

According the network, the final round on Sunday averaged a 6.0 household share, compared to 4.4 in 2013 when Jason Dufner won the tournament. A ratings share is the percentage of televisions tuned into a program. 

Those are the biggest ratings since 2009, when Y.E. Yang won and Tiger Woods finished second. The last 30 minutes of the tournament produced an impressive 9.2 rating.

Yeah, Y.E. Yang has always been the gold standard in television ratings.  And lest we get too excited about that 9.2, let's remember we were deep into prime time by then.

From the Twitterverse
I am not now nor have I ever been on Twitter, but I'm told the kids love it.  The R & R boys had a good natured exchange in the hours after the PGA's conclusion:

From Rickie Fowler: Congrats to @McIlroyRory on some great golf as of late...let's keep having fun with it!

Response from Rory: @RickieFowlerPGA your day is coming... And very soon! Great fight out there, let's hope for many more battles in the future!

Back Atcha from Rickie:@McIlroyRory thanks man...many more battles for sure...at tourneys and home in Jup...enjoy the week off!

You do get the sense that the guys like and respect each other, which is a good thing for the game.

Rory vs. Jack
OK, it's way too soon for this sort of speculation, I'm sure we'll all agree.  he's a tremendous talent and this won't be his last but, as we learned from that Woods guy, there's way too many variables to assess to make the speculation meaningful.

Well, Benjamin Morris at the fivethirtyeight blog thinks otherwise.  For those unfamiliar with it, fivethirtyeight was the N.Y. Times blog started by über-statman Nate Silver that initially focused on politics but now has ventured further afield (538 is the number of electoral votes, in case you were wondering about the name).

Even a few days ago, I would have thought positing McIlroy as a greater threat to Nicklaus

than Woods was ridiculous, but this is where we stand: McIlroy has built up one of the best starts to a career in modern golf history, essentially matching the Golden Bear through age 25, and each day Woods moves farther away from his prime.

It may not look like much, but that four-major start by McIlroy is firmly in Woods and Nicklaus territory — they are the only players to have won four majors through age 25. Winning those four majors in a 15-tournament span is also a rare accomplishment. There have been a number of similarly meteoric rises in golf, but they usually come at a more mature age (see, for example: Nick Faldo, Arnold Palmer, Ben Hogan). And some early starts aren’t so meteoric (Seve Ballesteros).

Lots of good analysis there, and fun to see a different slant on things.  But mostly I'll enjoy watching the lad play.