'Dis and 'Dat - Triskaidekaphobia Edition

The sun is out and the snow is presumably softening, so let's do this.  For those curious about it's origins, our fear of the number thirteen and of Friday the 13th specifically has its origins in the 13th person at the Last Supper, i.e., Judas.  So keep your heads low today, folks...

Public Relations Fails - Probably the biggest surprise in my year plus of full-time blogging has been the sorry state of public relations as practiced in the golf world.  From the outside one assumes that with no shortage of filthy lucre available the lads will avail themselves of competent professional guidance....yeah, not so much.

We've had many low points, the Tiger hissy fit in response to the Dan Jenkins faux interview, the Dustin Johnson deer-in-the-headlights interview with the vicious Tom Rinaldi, and every press conference the Commish has granted the plebes.  But now comes Patrick Reed, erstwhile World Top Fiver, and I suspect this will continue to dribble out.  We like spending time with Stephanie Wei, and she's on this story like white on rice (she's of course Asian so that just has to be racist).  Here's her latest reporting:

2. Before the team’s first tournament, during a qualifying round at the Forest Hills Golf

Club in Augusta, Reed was playing with a teammate. It was normal for the players not to use score cards, and to relay their scores to Josh Gregory, the coach, when the round had finished. Reed texted his score, and the teammate noticed that it was the wrong score—one shot lower than Reed had actually shot. He said nothing at the time, but told his teammates. The teammates took no action at that point. 

3. In the very next qualifying round, either the next day or two days later, Reed was playing at Goshen Plantation, this time with Mitch Krywulcyz, Taylor Floyd, and Brendan Gillins. Krywulcyz was responsible for relaying their scores to Gregory, and once again, Reed told him a score that the team believed to be incorrect. After the round, the teammates discussed the score and confirmed what they believed, that Reed’s announced score had been lower than the actual score. Krywulcyz called Reed, who backed up the score he had given Krywulcyz. At that point, the players agreed that something strange was happening—given Reed’s reputation, two false scores in a row raised suspicions. 

4. At that point, the team went to Gregory, and they held a meeting with Reed. Sitting at a long table with Gregory at one end and Reed at the other, the group went over both of his practice rounds hole-by-hole, and found that Reed’s stated score had been incorrect on both occasions. Reed reacted defensively, and when the teammates advised him to admit that he’d been shaving scores on purpose—since they’d respect him more if he was honest—he refused, and became angry. He was especially aggressive with the teammate from the first round, who was described as “easily the nicest guy on the team.” It was at this point that the team lost respect for Reed. He continued to insist he had simply added incorrectly, but after “mistakenly” shaving strokes for two rounds in a row, he never erred again in his two years at Augusta State.

Now it needs to be noted that the source has remained anonymous though Stephanie has identified him as a teammate.  And you'll note as I did the wealth of names, dates, courses and other specific details.

Also see this post of Stephanie's for reaction from some of Patrick's teammates on Twitter.

It's a classic PR conundrum, and one wonders if Patrick is being entirely honest with his team.  The Failure is quite obvious, in protesting his innocence he's given the story new life and provided the motivation for folks like Stephanie Wei to dig deeper and provide a surfeit of damning details.

This feels very similar to Vijay's cheating scandal from a hundred years ago.  I think most folks understand the pressures that a young golfer feels trying to make a living in our brutally difficult and highly competitive game, and would make some allowances for youthful errors in judgment.  But that requires an acknowledgement of the lapse in judgement and some sense of remorse, lacking in both incidents.

Stay tuned, because it appears that Patrick's teammates didn't like him very much, and are going to continue challenging his protestations of innocence.  This shouldn't affect our perceptions of his success as a professional, but the manner in which he's chosen to handle it makes it appear that it will continue to dog him.

A Soft Core Ball I'm Hoping - Fresh off that dispiriting story above, I feel the need to lighten the mood a bit.  Since they're playing The Snake Pit on Tour, how about a snake story?

According to the Ohio Wildlife Center, a black rat snake was brought into the hospital because of a large lump in its stomach. Turns out the lump was a golf ball that the snake had found in the wild and eaten. Experts say the snake probably mistook the ball for a frozen mouse, or maybe an egg. Apparently, snakes like to sneak into nests and eat whatever eggs they find. Charming creatures.

At least it wasn't a Rock Flite.

The Daly Beast - You know my feelings about the man, and I use that term in the loosest possible sense.  Unfortunately my #nomoresponsorsexemptions hashtag didn't take off, perhaps because I never actually tweeted it (I'm still a Twitter virgin).  So, let's catch up with our hero:

John Daly arrived in Tampa this week fresh off his first top-10 finish at a PGA Tour event in three years. But he also returned to the site of his worst career round.

In other words, something had to give. 

Let's just say Innisbrook won again. It wasn't the 90 Daly shot during the second round at last year's Valspar Championship, but it wasn't pretty, either. The two-time major champ opened with a double bogey on the par-5 first, added another on the par-4 seventh and shot 41 on the front nine. 

It didn't get much better on the back nine as Daly added a third double bogey and a triple bogey on No. 14. Even with a birdie on No. 18, he shot 81.

Just to be clear, there wasn't a lick of wind and the course was extremely soft, the easiest conditions you'll ever find.  And since we like colorful scorecards:

And more disgraceful than the 81 will be him dogging it today with no chance of playing the weekend.

Golf Porn - Down Maggot, don't get your hopes up... Employee No. 2's Irish eyes haven't been smiling much this winter, so I can only hope that the warming temps, melting snow and this will cheer her up.

With the dreadful St. Patrick's Day almost upon us, golf.com provides a slideshow of picturesque Irish golf courses.  You know the drill by now, but it's always great to see the usual suspects, including Lahinch below:

By the way, Maggot and Bride Thereof are moving to Los Angeles to be near their lovely daughters.  We're of course happy for them and Maggot will be bringing a stack of Unplayable Lies business cards to spread the gospel on the West Bank, but it does create a substantial cash flow loss for your humble blogger.

Spieth Waxes Nostalgic - File that under headlines you thought you'd never see.  But the young man has good memories of Innisbrook, as Jeff Babineau recounts:

It was here in 2013 that Spieth, then 19, needed a solid finish on Sunday to secure status as a special temporary member on the PGA Tour. He’d earned a spot into Tampa having finished inside the top 10 at Puerto Rico as a sponsor exemption the previous week (he was runner-up), and on Sunday at Innisbrook’s Copperhead, he needed another high finish, which wasn’t looking good after he made three bogeys in a five-hole stretch in the middle of his back nine. 

“I look back at 17 and 18 of that Sunday as two of the biggest holes I’ve ever played,” Spieth said, “and they will always be. I probably would have earned my (PGA Tour) card a little later, given the starts I would have had, but I needed to make whatever it was (about $475,000, to earn special temporary member status).

In hindsight it all looks preordained, but it's worth reminding folks of how hard it is to get playing privileges on the Tour.   And that's for a can't miss talent like Spieth...

I'll leave you here as it's time to go make a few turns.