Open Monday

Did anyone see that coming?  I got the Spieth part right, but little else....

Zach Attack - Here's Alan Shipnuck's amusing lede from his game story:

St. Andrews, SCOTLAND—The Slam is dead. Long live Zach Johnson, once the most

underrated player in golf and now the game’s greatest overachiever. 

After Johnson dusted the pre-scandal Tiger Woods at the 2007 Masters, Rick Reilly opined, “I think Zach Johnson in ten years has a real chance to be your server at Olive Garden.” Eight years later, Johnson is most of the way to the Hall of Fame, with 12 PGA Tour victories. More impressively, Johnson is only the sixth man to win both a Masters and an Open at the Old Course, joining all-time greats Sam Snead, Jack Nicklaus, Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo, and Woods.

Well, if one offers strong opinions some of them will be embarrassing in hindsight, such as my pretty much all of mine.  But Zach is the ultimate over-schiever given the limitations of his game, most notably the lack of length.

Zach's caddie Damon Green ir being appreciated for his impromptu chicken dance on the 18th green when Zach's unlikely birdie putt dropped, but he had these words about his man:

"I'd like to say he has something other than heart," says Johnson's caddie Damon Green, who did a memorable chicken dance after his boss’s birdie on the 72nd hole. "He's got the biggest pair out here. He's not afraid of being in the lead, he thrives on it. A lot of guys don't like being in the lead, they can't stomach it. But he's got a cast-iron stomach. Man, he's solid."

He certainly looked the most confident over his key short putts down the stretch, and that's as good a measure of testicular volume as any...

Sal Johnson has some interesting numbers from Zach's win, including this one:

20-under

Johnson absolutely owned the first ten holes of the Old Course, posting 14 birdies in regulation plus two more in the four-hole playoff. He also topped off each round with a birdie on 18 -- including a clutch 25-footer on the 72nd hole to earn a spot in the playoff -- for a cumulative score of 20-under par on those 11 holes. Over the same stretch, runners-up Marc Leishman and Louis Oosthuizen were both 13-under, while Grand-Slam-also-ran Jordan Spieth posted 16-under.

He did pretty well in holding on coming home, but those outbound holes played far easier all week, and allowed any player to flip wedges into all but the fourth green.  If the lads are wedging it, you have to like Zach's chances.

The Tour Confidential blokes were asked whether this makes Zach Hall of Fame worthy, and Gary Van Sickle nailed it with this:

The way they're running the Hall now, Zach would've gotten in with one major. He played great, no doubt, and was fortunate someone else didn't clip him. But there aren't many two-time major-winners. He is now a cut above the one-timers. And he's on par with, oh, Andy North and Greg Norman.

Well, except for that last bit, as Andy North and Greg Norman have likely never been previously mentioned in the same sentence.  But on the larger point I've noted here previously that while I would have set the bar higher, Zach's accomplishments would get him into the Hall.  This fortunately gets me to a point where I do think he's worthy of it.

Jordan Drools - That was gut-wrenching for us, though no doubt not as much for the young man

himself.  Before we get to the specifics, kudos to Spieth for a great run at it, for his hand-clap and thumbs-up on the 18th green after holing out, as well as for this post-round tweet:

Wow.. Almost. Nothing quite like @TheOpen at St Andrews. We fought hard. Very proud of a role model and friend of mine @ZachJohnsonPGA 

Ryan Lavner goes with the ironic angle:

The greatest irony? His magical short game – his greatest strength – was the part that let him down the most in his quest for a third major in a row. 

Ranked first on Tour in three-putt avoidance, Spieth’s speed control was off all week, leading to a career-worst 37 putts in Round 2, including five three-putts, and a four-putt on the eighth green Monday.

Tim Dahlberg agrees, though without the "I" word:

The Road Hole was playing so long into the rain and wind that Spieth couldn’t reach the

green in two. No matter, because he plopped his pitch just eight feet from the hole. 

“If I stood on 17th tee box and you told me I had that putt for par on the hole,” Spieth said later, “I would have certainly taken it.” 

Almost shockingly, he missed it right. The best putter in the game didn’t make the one that mattered the most.

Ultimately, six three-jacks and the shocking four-putt Monday on the eighth were just too deep a hole, and here' the lad on the latter:

Q. Take us through 8. You said you made a mental mistake there.

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, I believe we played 8 and 17 as hard as anybody -- as hard as any group today, were those two holes. It was the hardest rain and the hardest wind at the same time of the day. We stepped on that tee box, and you'd like to maybe have a downwind hole where it doesn't really make that much of a difference, but when you look up from the ball and you're getting pelted in the face, it's a hard shot, and I just tried to sling one in there and I left it 40 yards from the pin on the green there, and it's just a no-brainer. If you make bogey, you're still in it. If you make double bogey, it's a very difficult climb, and there's absolutely no reason to hit that putt off the green. I can leave it short, I can leave if eight feet short and have a dead straight eight-footer up the hill where I'll make that the majority of the time. My speed control was really what cost me this week, the five three-putts the second round, and then just my speed control in general wasn't great. On that hole I had left so many of them short throughout the week, I said, I'm not leaving this one short, I'm going to get this one up there, and instead hit it off the other side of the green where it was really dead there, so that was a mental mistake on my part. Instead of being patient and just accepting eight feet from 40 yards like I do on a 40-yard wedge shot, I instead was a little too aggressive with it when it wasn't necessary.

I'm assuming that he means that he caught the worst of the conditions, but how shocking was that first putt?  

Brandel Chamblee looks elsewhere for that elusive lost stroke"

“People will nitpick this and talk about Jordan Spieth’s putting, and probably that’s why

he didn’t win,” Chamblee said Monday evening from St. Andrews. “He did have five three-putts and a four-putt, but Louis Oosthuizen had six three-putts. Zach Johnson had four three-putts. 

“He started this championship in grand fashion with a 31, but he did drive it in a pot bunker on the 13th hole and he found a pot bunker on the 17th hole on the back nine on Thursday. And he found a pot bunker on the fifth hole on Friday.”

He bogeyed those holes in each case. 

“Ultimately he played the par fives in two-under par. Zach Johnson was four-under par, Louis Oosthuuizen was four-under par [on the par 5s]. He did everything this week except avoid the pot bunkers, which is a no-no here. He lost by the thinnest of margins.”

On Friday I note that those mistakes could have been the result of a lack of clarity on the lines off the tee and into the green on No. 17.  As for his first graph, those guys are good putters, our Jordan is supposed to be the best putter on the planet.

 The kid is an obvious talent and has a flare for the dramatic, as per his 40-foot putt on No. 16.  He also staged quite the comeback after the double-bogey on No. 8, which we've seen him do more than most.  And he missed by the slimmest of margins with all that...

I feel vindicated in my pre-tournament criticism of his schedule, and I really wish it were otherwise.  I take his point that there's no clear path and future is unknown to us, but my primary logic was to prepare for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in a manner that would leave no room for regrets.  Do I think an extra week to ten days on site (and perhaps at Gullane) would have helped him maintain a feel for the green speeds?  I don't know and of course I can't know, but I think it's an entirely reasonable question, and one I was hoping he and I would not have to entertain.

R&A Recriminations - The Confidentilistas were asked about the curious handling of Saturday morning, with the expected results:

RITTER: They botched the green speeds for Saturday's winds and paid the price. We'll remember this event for the playoff and Spieth's run at history, but a lot of players -- including Spieth and Oosthuizen -- lost some shots during the 32 minutes they were forced to play in unfair conditions Saturday morning. That stings.

True that, though those groups had enjoyed a significant advantage in Thursday's play, so my sense is that the two waves got different but ultimately relatively equal treatment from the weather Gods.

LYNCH: The wind was howling, sure, but it would have been something less of an issue if the greens were at a reasonable speed. Links courses have enough width to be played in strong winds, and the Old Course is no exception. But when you shave the greens, the wind makes play untenable.

That's going to be an issue going forward.  While there can be little doubt that the R&A botched Saturday morning (and Thursday morning in even sillier fashion, though it didn't affect the marque groups), I do want to commend them for one decision.

It would have been logical to try to play 36 holes to complete the evnt on Sunday, making the network and sponsors far happier.   But the R&A accepted the hand they were dealt and protected the integrity of the event by planning on the Monday finish.  Playing 36-holes and leaving time for a four-hole playoff requires major compromises, including going to split tees and not repairing.  Not only is the Old Course a difficult course on which to physically get players to the tenth tee, but the leaderboard was so compressed that it would have been eminently possible to have the winning putt holed on the ninth green at the furthest end of the property.

There's more to discuss, but all in good time...