Weekend Wrap

The good news is that I finally saw my shadow Sunday afternoon.  However, as I understand things, that ensures that we'll have six more weeks of winter.

Quail-Safe - I hope you got your fill of The Green Mile, because you'll have to do without for a full fifteen months.  But about that tourney:

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Sometimes, it’s just a crazy game. James Hahn, who hadn’t made

a cut in eight events on the PGA Tour dating to early February, emerged from a pack of superstars Sunday to win the Wells Fargo Championship in a playoff over Roberto Castro.

Hahn, whose last made cut – and last round in the 60s, for that matter – came three months ago at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, parred the notorious 18th at Quail Hollow Club on the first extra hole after shooting 70 to tie Castro at 9-under 279.

“Just didn’t have the confidence, didn’t believe in my myself,” said Hahn, now a two-time Tour winner. “I felt like I was putting in the work but wasn’t getting any reward for it.”

A pep talk with caddie Mark Urbanek after last week’s Zurich Classic, however, helped give Hahn the spark he needed. “We just kind of had a talk that, “Hey, look, you just have to keep believing in yourself, keep grinding because it’s not always going to be like this,’ ” Hahn said.

Sometimes?   OK, how annoying were Kostis and McCord with their constant "This guy's swing is too good for him not to be a top player" bit?  It's fine the first few times, at least under standards that acknowledge how much air time they have to fill.  But while there's a few idiosynchratic swings out there, most of the guys look pretty damn good on the KonicaMinolta Swing Hub.  Because, you know, they have their names on their bags...

Many no doubt were surprised by the poor day of Rickie Fowler, including this guy:

Something is holding Fowler back, and it's not his talent or technique or course management. It's not because he's having too much fun off the course. It's not the hightops. What he lacks is Raymond Floyd's stare, Nick Faldo's self-absorption, Vijay Singh's nasty streak. Watch Fowler with fans and sponsors and other players, in his TV interviews and his acting gigs. You can tell: He likes being liked, and he needs to be liked. Nothing wrong with that. But what Tiger needed was for you to get the hell out of his way now. 

Can a killer instinct be developed? Only rarely. Ernie Els didn't have it, then he did. (Let's not talk about now.) Megatalents who are social creatures at heart tend to have long careers but sometimes walk away from the table with good meat still on the bone. Fred Couples and Davis Love III had some of that.

And here's that same guy answering the same question as part of the Tour Confidential panel:

Michael Bamberger: I feel differently, Gary--I think you show the killer instinct by being a successful front-runner, with the attitude that no matter what the lead is, you want more. Tiger felt he should have won the 2000 U.S. Open by 16, and is likely still upset about a ruling he wanted and did not get.

They're both useful skills, but I've always found playing with the lead to be harder...  But I don't know what's going on in this crazy, mixed up world if this is the voice of reason:

Joe Passov: I'm kind of with Jeff here ... sort of. I too was surprised to see the stat that said this was only the third time Rickie had held or co-held a third-round lead, and first since 2011. Is it possible that maybe he's just not as good a player as we want him to be? I say that because I know how good he is for the game, and I've seen him spend tons of extra time with kids, fans, signing autographs, posing for pics. So yes, I root for him for that reason. Yet, what's real is that outside of the four-for-four Top 5s in majors in 2014 and his scintillating Players win in 2015, he hasn't accomplished all that much.

OK, who are you and what have you done with Travelin' Joe?

No shortage of love for this video of Jason Kokrak escaping from the second floor of a hospitality facility earlier in the week (thanks, Mags).  Phil got there first at The Barclays at Plainfield, though I think he stayed on the ground floor.

And speaking of our Phil, a simple yes will suffice here:

3. Rory McIlroy and Phil Mickelson had classic Rory McIlroy and Phil Mickelson weeks at Quail Hollow. McIlroy closed with a 66 but shot 73 on both Thursday and Saturday; Mickelson, after making a quadruple-bogey 8 on 18 Saturday and shooting 76, bounced back with his own 66 Sunday. With the U.S. Open just weeks away, what should we read into their performances?

That quad on Saturday was a classic of the Phil genre.... You can click through on that TC link above if you care about the answers, but unless Oakmont plays really soft I'm not liking either of those guys.

When Is That Sell-By Date? -  Had your fill of Rickie yet?  I know, he seems to be a nice enough kid, but the hype and results have never been in balance.  If you're burned out on orange, you might want to take this week off, as folks reminisce about last year's Players win.  This lengthy, interactive piece is really very good, not least when it fills in some personal background:

Rickie started to practice and play tournaments regularly, but on Wednesdays, he’d hit balls with his grandfather and hear stories about Taka's childhood, during which he was forced into a World War II internment camp for people of Japanese heritage.

Those moments with the man who introduced him to golf are the reason Rickie (whose middle name is Yutaka) cried after losing the Waste Management Phoenix Open in a playoff in February. It wasn’t because he missed out on a PGA TOUR victory; golfers lose far more tournaments than they win. It was because his grandfather, one of the 618,000 fans at TPC Scottsdale, had never seen him win in person.

Those moments led to Rickie getting his grandfather’s name tattooed in Japanese on the inside of his left bicep last year. They led to school projects and reports about Yutaka’s experience in the internment camp.

“I’ve never heard my dad talk about it and I’ve never heard Rickie talk about it,” Lynn says. “I think it’s possible Rickie could be the first person my dad gave those stories to.”

And this on Rickie's amazing finish, especially his three Sunday passes at the island green, is also worth a read.

It really was quite the amazing finish, well worth the victory lap.  Rickie probably didn't do himself any favors by coughing up a 54-hole lead the week before, but as a wise man once said, it is what it is...

Both items come via Shack, who sees it as a comeback of sorts for long-form journalism....  No doubt attention spans are shorter these days, but all one need do is write something that's worthy of the length.

It's Good To Be The King - Lots of men have ruined individual companies, but it's the rare breed that poison the well of entire industries.... But Mark King is that man.  After having worked his magic on TaylorMade's golf business, he was kicked upstairs and has this to add to the story of its sale:

"I think the decision was made to sell it," King says, "because the company has realized that we should be focusing on the biggest growth opportunities. And the biggest growth opportunities are in running, training, basketball. And we have a lot of runway in those. As opposed to being in something that is harder to focus on."

Harder to focus on? In other words, golf equipment is a bad business these days (despite Hainer's insistence to the contrary)? "It is," King says. "And that was the realization."

Shack has a little spittle running down the side of his mouth at the chutzpah of it all, reminding us first of this:

Add him to the list of business minds blaming the sport for not embracing a grand vision of consumers replacing $500 drivers and $1200 sets of irons on a bi-annual basis. Or, in the case of Taylor Made circa 2013, tri-annual.

Well, but that was carefully timed to catch our fifth "Recovery Summer"....  I know, they're still clogging up the remainders bin at Dick's.

But Geoff seems capable of holding a grudge for as long as your humble blogger, so let's be grateful for this stroll down memory lane:

As the former TaylorMade chief, King has had a hand in the many efforts to attract new fans to the sport of golf and change the downward trend. Two years ago, along with the National Golf Foundation, King helped launch Hack Golf, an open invitation to innovations that might grow the game. The most notable of those was a larger, 15-inch hole (about the size of a pizza box) that some hoped would lure young kids to try an easier version of the game. It was met with ridicule in some parts of the sport.

Remember kids, the very same folks who are now telling us that Olympic Golf will save our game were previously telling us that Hack Golf was the future.

So what does the way forward look like? "I just think any category runs its play until the play doesn’t work anymore," King says. "And then it’s forced to ask, Do we need to do things differently? Tennis did that. Bowling did that. Skiing did that. And I think that's where the game of golf is today. It needs to change some of the entry points to the game to attract new consumers. And I think golf will find a way to do that, whether that takes five years or 10 years." 

Adidas can't wait that long to see if the industry will improve. It will remain on golfers' shirts and shoes, but it's looking to get out your bag of clubs, pronto.

 An actual teachable moment...  King has happened upon an actual truth, but of course completely mangles it beyond recognition.  Sports do need to adapt, and let's take skiing, a subject with which I am familiar, as an example...

Skiing has evolved to include snowboarding and freeskiing as a result of the the foresight of the leaders of the sport decreeing that henceforth you shall go forward and ski on a single board instead of on two skis....

Yeah, not so much....  what happened of course is that millions of market participants tried billions of crazy things at a micro level...  and out of that evolved all sorts of innovations.  It also helped that engineering and materials technology trickled down and made the sport a little easier...  But these things happen organically and golf has benefited from them for centuries, they just don't occur as a result of the formation of committees.

I know, pass that on to your favorite Bernie Sanders voter...

Oh, and is our game dying?

Earlier this year the National Golf Foundation reported, for the first time since 2012, the number of golf rounds played in the United States were up. This week, the foundation revealed the uptick was not a digression, as participation in 2016 continues to trend upwards. 

Through three months, golf rounds played are up 5.5 percent, according to Golf Datatech. This number is incited by a strong March, as the month experienced a 13.2 percent boom.

That last bit was no doubt influenced by unusually-tepid weather, but the fact that people use warm weather to go play golf is worth keeping in mind.

Did Someone Mention the Olympics? - I've often criticized Pravda's Karen Crouse for a lack of knowledge of her subject matter, but she knows enough to get this right:

Golf’s ruling bodies had seven years to smooth over the ruffled feathers of sponsors or tournament officials whose events could have been sacrificed this year for the greater good of the game. They also could have fought for a mixed-gender event, which Scott said “would have been a great platform,” or a team format at the Olympics. Instead they took the path of least resistance, a stroke-play event that guaranteed a maximum star presence and a minimum overall impact. 

The powers-that-be whiffed. And because they would not make the tough calls, the players are left to wrestle with the difficult decision on whether to opt out of the Olympics.

I couldn't have resisted using shanked in lieu of whiffed, but she gets to the essence of it.   But it's her first sentence that's the real tell, as the powers-that-be so often pretend that this all happened so quickly that they made the best of it they could.

Swimmer Micheal Phelps captures this thought in pitch-perfect manner:

“You see some of these golfers who are so excited to have a chance to be back in the Olympics,” Phelps said. “You could probably argue that some of these guys probably think the Masters, the rest of the majors, are bigger than what the Olympics is. In reality, the Olympics is the largest level in athletics in the world. There’s no higher level of competition.”

Yes, of course..... in swimming.  And even Rory, who can't be faulted for going along, gets it:

But in their courtship of the I.O.C., the top golf officials were like the ardent suitor who gives little consideration to the future beyond the presentation of the attention-grabbing engagement ring.

Rory McIlroy, who will defend his title this week at the Wells Fargo Championship, will represent Ireland in Rio. McIlroy, the third-ranked golfer in the world, said, “I feel like the officials were patting themselves on the back for getting golf in,” instead of treating the sport’s inclusion in the Olympics as the first step in a marathon of planning.

OK, do we think Karen realizes how funny that segue is?  Our Rory knows full well how things can go awry after sending out the invitations...

And Marika Washchyshyn is shocked, shocked to find out that human nature still rules:

The apathy or reluctance among some of the male players is understandable. The PGA

Tour will play two of its four majors in the weeks leading up to Rio, and the FedEx Cup playoffs –- with a $10 million bonus payout -– in the weeks immediately following it. The women, on the other hand, have a three-week respite around the Olympics, which the LPGA tour requested. 

“It seemed right to take a break for those players,” Whan said. “If they are playing [the Olympics], they’re not falling back in the world rankings or the official money list.”

Not only does the LPGA have too many holes in their schedule to begin with, but they desperately need the exposure.  So, Zika be damned....

Actually, perhaps the most surprising thing is that Tiger's name doesn't come up in the discussion of the format.  It seemed important those seven years ago to have an event that Tiger would embrace, and he didn't like match play or team events.  It's been a long time since Tiger mattered, but it was never helpful when his preferences ruled.

The Lightning Round -

As Serious as a Heart Attack - “It’s really in (the club’s) DNA,” Davis said. “It’s been said that, and maybe somewhat in jest, when the USGA comes to town Oakmont must cut the rough, slow down the greens and utilize easier hole locations. I hope it’s in jest. But you get the drift.”

And as Smooth as His Putting Stroke:  My other favorite was Ernie Els as the runaway winner for "Player you'd want defending you in a bar fight." Wonder if his right hook is as effortless as his golf swing.

 Too soon?

Gotcha Covered, Danny Boy - Masters Champion: “No, I've not heard from the President of America yet - nor old Queenie."

Stop by any time:

I'll leave the reader to imagine how that picture came to be.....

More Inked Than Spotted - SPOTTED: Anthony Kim. At a Dallas pet store.

No, really....check the photo.  Employee No. 2 has long believed that he's in Tiger's basement.  You'll have to ask her yourself, because I don't want to know....

I'll Take Rafael Cruz on the Grassy Knoll for $100, Alex - Donald Trump says he has too much integrity to cheat at golf

Not THAT Golfer - Is calling a golfer a "cheater" the worst thing you can say about him?