Baby, It's Cold Outside

Hope you're enjoying your Polar Vortex/Valentine's Day celebrations....Perhaps I can add to the joy of the day?

Pebble Penumbras - Seems like just yesterday we found ourselves expressing profound concerns about the quality of the Clambake's leaderboard......What?  Oh, it WAS yesterday....At me age one needs to make such allowances.  But how things change ever so quickly:

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. (AP) -- Phil Mickelson stayed away from all the celebrity

commotion Saturday at Pebble Beach. More importantly, he stayed away from bogeys on the toughest day. 

Mickelson took only 21 putts and shot a 6-under 66 to take a two-shot lead in the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, leaving him one round away from tying the record with his fifth victory at this event.

"It's fun to be back in the thick of it," Mickelson said. 

It's his first 54-hole lead on the PGA Tour since the 2013 U.S. Open at Merion. Mickelson has gone 52 events worldwide since his last victory at Muirfield in the 2013 British Open that gave him the third leg of the Grand Slam. It is the longest drought of his career.

I have to say that Phil looked really solid over those 3-4-footers, but 21 putts is just sick.  He seemed to spend most of his second nine exploding out of bunkers, so he might want to do less of that this afternoon.  But an old warhorse with a two shot lead that hasn't won since the Carter Administration on the most iconic of golf courses with local wind chills in the -20's, I don't know, I might tune in...

I will also recommend this piece for Phil phans, written after Friday's round but thus far eerily prescient:

"He seems energized, excited, talking about the game," said pro Justin Rose, who sits one shot behind Mickelson after two rounds. "He's enjoying it again. He seems hungry for it. I overheard a conversation in the locker room he was having with some of the guys, and he seems to really like this golf course." 

Hey, let's be honest. Mickelson has basically carried on a 20-year romance with every inch of Pebble real estate on the three courses used for the Pro-Am. He also enjoys the format, loves the interaction with the celebrities and CEOs in the amateur field.

It figures that you'll love a place where you've won three times, though left unsaid is whether that love extended to the dreaded Poppy Hills.  But they may be getting him on the rebound after he was spurned by his first love, Torrey Pines.

I found the CBS broadcast to be marginally less cloying than usual, though perhaps that's because I spent the middle 90 minutes taking a well-deserved nap and spending some quality time with one of my heroes, Gabriel Allon.  Though there were a couple of items from the endless 17th hole interviews that caught my eye:

• Wayne Gretzky couldn't get over how patient and helpful his playing partner was...Duh, not only are you The Great One, Wayne, but you're his de facto father-in-law.  If he wants to get any, he needs to be nice to you.
• Mark this date on your calendar, folks, because Sir Nick actually made me chuckle when he tried to teach Jim Nantz's newborn son to say, "Hello friends."
• Ray Romano was actually engaging....I know, imagine my shock.  Let me allow Alex Myers to remind us of the history, specifically that epic cpmeback from seven-down in 2000:

That performance (seven shots down with seven to play!), which gave Woods a sixth consecutive PGA Tour win, didn't have the same margin of victory, but it included a more pesky foe than any tour pro: Ray Romano. At least, according to one golf writer.

In his story for Sports Illustrated, Alan Shipnuck wasn't kind to the comedian, who took Bill Murray's spot in the pro-am field. Shipnuck describes Romano as "a man whose next funny joke will be his first," and then writes this about his pace of play.

Romano would've been simply an irritating footnote were he not playing in the group in front of Woods throughout the first three rounds. The soul-sucking effects of Romano's glacial pace were especially evident at Spyglass, where an exhausted and irritated Woods came apart over the final holes.

So, why the new-found love for Raymond...  First, he says that he tells them to pair him with any pro they want...I like that.  This week he drew the unknown Sung Kang, and was lucky enough to watch the young man almost shoot 59.  But it was this comment I loved, "I had to google him, and he had to google me.  See how easy it is to draw me over to your side?  A little self-effacing humor goes a long way...

Now it hasn't been a great week for World No. 1 Jordan Spieth.  Upon arrival at Pebble he declare that any hangover from his world travels was gone after a couple of nights in his own bed.  But see if his phraseology reminds you of anyone?

“I feel great. I feel very rested now,” Spieth said Wednesday. “It’s amazing what a solid week back here of kind of rest and regeneration will do. My speeds are where they need to be, my rest is back, everything feels good.”

Your speeds?  How about your feels?  Have you had enough reps?  Sheesh, is there a statute that requires you as World No. 1 to speak like R2D2?

We previously covered his side-trip to Cypress Point with Jake Owen... by the way, does anyone know who Jake Owen is?  He also got a kick out of Michael Greller shanking one on the 7th tee during a practice round.... The folks at UA obviously have a sense of humor.

And Mrs. Great One shared a cute video of young Tatum (DJ and Paulina's son) stealing Spieth's putter...  Hey, the kid was at Chambers Bay and knows to stay as far away as possible from his father's putter.

Antonin Scalia, RIP - I've long feared for our Republic, but last night's tragic news certainly accelerates our decline....  I'll get to the gold connection soon, but first this wonderful twwet from Ross Douthat:

True that.  Scalia is perhaps best known (and most important) in those cases where he failed to prevail, and his scathing dissents are legendary.  His dissent in the Casey Martin case is such an example, the whole thing being found here if you're inclined to see what the law is supposed to be about.  Here's an excerpt:

Having concluded that dispensing with the walking rule would not violate federal-Platonic "golf" (and, implicitly, that it is federal-Platonic golf, and no other, that the PGA TOUR can insist upon) the Court moves on to the second part of its test: the competitive effects of waiving this nonessential rule. In this part of its analysis, the Court first finds that the effects of the change are "mitigated" by the fact that in the game of golf weather, a "lucky bounce," and "pure chance" provide different conditions for each competitor and individual ability may not "be the sole determinant of the outcome." Ante, at 25. I guess that is why those who follow professional golfing consider Jack Nicklaus the luckiest golfer of all time, only to be challenged of late by the phenomenal luck of Tiger Woods. The Court's empiricism is unpersuasive. "Pure chance" is randomly distributed among the players, but allowing respondent to use a cart gives him a "lucky" break every time he plays. Pure chance also only matters at the margin--a stroke here or there; the cart substantially improves this respondent's competitive prospects beyond a couple of strokes. But even granting that there are significant nonhuman variables affecting competition, that fact does not justify adding another variable that always favors one player.

We're not likely to see his kind again, and more's the pity.  RIP.

An Inconvenient Segue -  How scary is it that Scalia's replacement will be chosen by Hillary ( don't dawdle, that indictment could hit at any time) or by this:

The funniest quip I've heard thus far is that Trump could cement his nomination if he announced that his first SCOTUS appointment would be...Ted Cruz.

Back to the golf....Last week he had this to say about the WGC event at Doral:

The PGA Tour has not informed Donald Trump of its plan to potentially move the WGC-Cadillac Championship from Trump National Doral after 2016, Trump said Monday.

Speaking to GOLF.com, the Republican presidential frontrunner said that he had not heard from the Tour on the matter but predicted that the Tour would not follow through.

"They do not want to do that,” Trump said. “There’s no site like Doral in Florida. I have the greatest site in all of Florida."

"If they want to do that, it's fine with me," Trump said. "I'll make more money."

Well, I'm certainly glad that will work out for you....but what about Turnberry?

The billionaire businessman, a leading Republican presidential candidate, was unaware of any issues with the R&A and instead is moving forward with proposed changes to the iconic property in Scotland. 

“I haven't been told that at an all, no,” Trump said Friday by phone about Turnberry being taken off the British Open rota, which first was reported by London’s Independent. “We're working together with the R&A on the design. We have redesigned it, and it's almost completed. It will be opened in July and, no, I haven't heard that at all.” 

If the R&A has not communicated Turnberry’s exclusion to Trump, the presidential candidate’s fiery remarks about Muslims, Mexicans, Chinese and women clearly has made it more difficult for the R&A to select Turnberry for its next British Open vacancy, in 2020.

All those in the Open Rota please take one step forward... Not so fast, Donald.  But there is one event that's quite secure, which he can't lose no matter which subset of the population he offends:

Newli-installed USGA Prez Diana Murphy had this to say about the 2017 U.S. Women's Open to be held at Trump Bedminster:

DM: I don't have anything to say about the political campaign in general. As for the course, we've had two championships there before. The staff, the members, the volunteers did an exceptional job at both championships. We are contractually obligated to have a Women's Open there, and we believe it will be a very successful Open there.

Contractually obligated?  That's the problem with putting women in positions of authority, they get so emotional...

In reality, the Women's Open is an extremely difficult event for which to find a home, and is usually proferred with a wink and a nod that it's a first step in a tryout for a real U.S. Open.  So that event, especially at this late date, will not be moved.... Unless, you know, they HAVE to.

We Get Results, Part II - Fresh off saving Mrs. Foreman's from the bulldozer, comes news of further success of our efforts to remind the Scots of their own damn history:

The world's oldest golf course, North Inch, has been spared closure after local council performed a miraculous u-turn...

St Andrews may be known as the home of golf throughout the world, with the first golf being played there being back in 1574. However, Beasley’s World Atlas of Golf names North Inch as the "first recognizable golf course in the world.” King James V1 (sic) played there in the 1500’s, some 70 years earlier than the first record of golf at St Andrews, according to the Perth Merchants Golf Club. Old Tom Morris created the existing lay out, so we really are talking about some serious golfing history.

First, how great is the name North Inch?  Second, how great is that typo above.... I'm guessing that James VI didn't actually play Pro-V1's...

Lastly, the fact that I hadn't actually blogged the threatened closure of this historic course shouldn't in any way diminish my sense of accomplishment.  

But what's in the water over there that the Scots need us to nag them about preserving their heritage?  here's a taste of the history involved:

I'm guessing this is where the requirement for collared shirts originated....

What Could Go Wrong?  - We could file this under strange bedfellows, but I just fear they might take away the wrong lessons:

The endearing news is that others are looking to take inspiration from an alluring PGA Tour stop, which was once little more than a tiny spot in the desert. Barry Funston, the chief executive of Rory McIlroy’s charity foundation, attended the Phoenix Open at the weekend with the specific intention of meeting with Thunderbirds and learning what has made the tournament such a success on all levels. 

The link is straightforward; the Rory Foundation’s hosting of the Irish Open, as now sponsored by Dubai Duty Free, last year at Royal County Down saw fresh life breathed into an event which had earlier become worryingly stagnant. McIlroy’s involvement should form part of his professional legacy; his ambitions to grow the tournament are obvious even in brief conversation.

Remember that ten-drink limit?  I don't see that going over well in Ireland...

The problem is that they're taking the event to the dreadful K Club this year, and while Rory's involvement is helpful it was more likely the iconic Royal County Down that provided last year's buzz.

So, may we please have more of that, Sir?