Weekend Wrap

Your humble blogger succumbed to the twenty degree wind chill yesterday and actually watched more football than golf.  However, why let that little detial get in the way of having strong opinions on the golf that was played...

Malaysian Meltdowns - Here's the headline from Kuala Lumpur:

Ryan Moore knows how to finish a tournament, and how to start a season. 

For the second straight year, Moore won the CIMB Classic on Sunday, and for the third

year running he won on the PGA Tour's fall schedule to get a flying start to the season, having also won the Shriners' Hospitals for Children Open in October 2012. 

Moore shot a 5-under 67 for a three-stroke win, beating fellow American Gary Woodland for the second straight year. He finished on 17-under 271 at Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club to become the first player to defend a title on the PGA Tour since Tiger Woods at the Arnold Palmer Invitation in 2013.

.But that's hardly what I saw when I tuned in with the final group on the 16th green.  Moore had a six-footer for par to maintain a two-shot lead, which he proceeded to safely lay up., Then Kevin Na had a three-footer to tie Moore, which he shoved horribly.  

Na then proceeded to balloon his tee shot on No. 16 into a palm tree, where it presumably is now receiving mail and Gary Woodland, needing to birdie No. 18 proceeded to 3-jack, allowing Moore to stroll home without undue stress.  

Wedded Bliss -  The ladies were in Taiwan and the usual suspects played well:

Six days after taking the No. 1 spot in the world from Stacy Lewis, Inbee Park was a notch above the American again at Miramar. 

Park won the LPGA Taiwan Championship on Sunday for her third victory of the year and 12th tour title, holding off Lewis by two strokes.

The 26-year-old South Korean player closed with a 1-under 71 in light rain to finish at 22-under 266. The victory capped a hectic Asian trip centered around her marriage last month to swing coach Gi Hyeob-nam..

I didn't realize she had already tied the knot, so I'll check whether Employee No. 2 has elected something for her from her registry.

Round-Belly Anti-Climax - You folks are well-acquainted with my feelings about the FedEx Cup, which in trying to serve two masters is utterly incoherent.  The Charles Schwab Cup, despite being administered by the very same PGA Tour, does not suffer from this defect and is a relatively coherent contest to identify the best golfer over the entire course of the season.  However, while coherent, it will sometime not create the desired rousing crescendo, as in this year with Berhard Langer having sewed things up last week.

Tom Pernice Jr. won the Champions Tour's season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Championship on Sunday, beating Jay Haas with a birdie on the fourth hole of a playoff.

The 55-year-old Pernice got up-and-down from the left bunker on the par-5 18th, holing a 6-foot putt after Haas made a 12-footer for par. 

Pernice closed with a 3-under 67 - also making a 6-foot birdie putt on 18 - to match Haas at 11-under 269 on Desert Mountain's Cochise Course. The 60-year-old Haas had a 66.

They do need to work on their terminology, as Langer won the CS Cup, which is a different thing than the CS Cup Championship... got that?

Bad Math? - This might be the most interesting story of the weekend, but has gotten scant coverage.  Loyal readers will know of my concerns about the PGA Tour becoming an increasingly closed shop.  Because of this, playing privileges on the Web.com Tour are a valuable commodity, and the Tour has extended them to the top five on the Order of Merit on the PGA Tour China.  So this story is kind of important:

Chinese golfer Zhang Xinjun has been hit with a six-month ban from competitive play

after "signing for the wrong score" twice during the PGA Tour China Series, the China Golf Association (CGA) announced Wednesday. 

Zhang was disqualified for signing for the wrong score when carding at the Lanhai Open in Shanghai in June before getting his second ­penalty for a similar incident at the Cadillac Championship in Beijing in September. 

The ban, from September 15 to March 14, rules Zhang out of several year-end championships such as the WGC-HSBC Champions and PGA Tour China's Tour Championship. 

But a win and three runner-up finishes in the Tour have earned him the top spot in the Order of Merit with 650,600 yuan ($106,048), about 140,000 yuan clear of second-placed David McKenzie of Australia.

Obviously what jumps out at me is the fact that this happened more than once.  It's not clear at this stage in the story cycle whether his "bad math" affects any of the finishes that earned him the slot on the Order of Merit, but obviously his local tour is not, shall we say, amused.

But we do seem to be getting a higher level of transparency from the PGA Tour China than we would from Ponte Vedra Beach, which is really all you need to know.  Stay tuned for further updates.

Driving That Cart, High on Cocaine - Wondering how DJ's substance abuse therapy is going?  Turns out there's lots of DJ news to go through, and it's the perfect week.  Why perfect?  I'll let Will Gray explain:

The interview schedule at the WGC-HSBC Champions might be a little light this week,

what with no defending champion. It’s been 12 months since Dustin Johnson left China with the trophy, and it’s been three months since he last played on the PGA Tour. When Johnson announced his leave of absence, which was followed by a report of a drug suspension that both he and the Tour subsequently denied, this week’s lack of a title defense was forecast as an understandably high point of awkwardness. 

Johnson’s return to action remains unknown, though there appears to be a chance that fiancée Paulina Gretzky will give birth to their first child before he tees it up again in competition. 

But apparently Bolivian Marching Powder is apparently better for one's game than I realized,  as per this amusing tidbit:

At least there’s one silver lining for him during his sabbatical: thanks to the quirks of the OWGR, Johnson has moved up from 17th to 15th while his clubs have been collecting dust.

DJ  will also be seeing the inside of a courtroom, as per this:

PGA golfer Dustin Johnson was allegedly the victim of a theft and extortion scheme perpetrated by the title law firm of Morris Hardwick Schneider, the firm’s former managing partner, Nathan (Nat) Hardwick, the firm’s current managing partner, Mark Wittstadt, and Gerard (Rod) Wittstadt, to the tune of $3 million. 

Johnson’s lawsuit, filed Tuesday in United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia and obtained exclusively by HousingWire, alleges that the law firm of Morris Hardwick Schneider, now known as Morris Schneider Wittstadt, Hardwick and both Wittstadt’s, used their positions as Johnson’s “trusted advisors” to steal $3 million from him to cover shortages in the firm’s accounts created by Hardwick himself, who allegedly embezzled at least $30 million from the firm’s own accounts and the firm’s trust accounts.

Athletes are ripe targets, but it's always a shame when it happens.  Stephanie Wei has much more on the lawsuit here,  

Like me, I'm sure you're curious as to coke's effect on tempo, so you'll be glad to hear this from Eamon Lynch:

 

Eamon Lynch‏@eamonlynch

A well-placed source tells me that Dustin Johnson shot a pair of 61's this week at LA's Sherwood CC, which is not a rehab facility.

It does seem like he's throwing himself into his rehab, no?