It's not clear that I have enough time to finish this post, so you'll se eit some time between now and whenever....
Tiger Droppings - It's the first Thursday of the 2016-17 wraparound season, and we're leading with a guy that isn't on the tee sheet. I'll therefore go way out on a limb and suggest that the only appropriate response to this is, "Yes, next question please":
Mailbag: Did Tiger's Sudden WD Disrespect the Safeway Open?
Here's the actual exchange.... see if you react as I did?
Hey Van Cynical, I’m a big Tiger fan. He’s ready Friday but not three days later?Have some respect for the PGA Tour, the tourney organizers, Johnny Miller, paying fans. Thoughts? — Len Hochberg
Tiger is obligated to play this tournament, IceBerg. He got a release to play in Turkey two years ago with the condition that he play the Frys.com Open (now Safeway) the following year. He was out with back surgery and couldn’t play last year. So he hoped to play, probably wanted to play, thought he could play on Friday and by Monday realized his game wasn’t ready for primetime. When you’re TW, the standard is higher. He doesn’t want to embarrass himself. I get that. But also, he owes Safeway one and that was probably part of his initial desire to play.
Sorry, Gary, but if you're gonna use that nom de guerre, can we not expect at least trace elements of cynicism? Being Tiger has huge benefits, but also comes with some responsibilities.... When he gives a head fake that he'll peg it, he sets off a chain reaction, the effects of which Johnny Miller and others are now cleaning up.
Again, the world wants to know, what could have changed between Friday and Monday?
Matthew Rudy jumps on Tiger's use of the "V-word" and ponders the nature of said vulnerability. This is a common reaction:
Golf Digest 50 Best Teacher Randy Smith has worked with dozens of PGA Tour players, including Justin Leonard, Harrison Frazar and Martin Flores, but his experience with the yips starts first-hand. He's had them in his own chipping game since 1976.
"When I heard Tiger say he wasn't ready after committing, the first thing I thought was that it has to be the chipping thing," says Smith, who is based at Royal Oaks Country Club in Dallas. "I've admired Tiger's short game up close ever since he was a junior player. And if he had his short game, he could go out in Napa and shoot 72-73 and say it was valuable to get out there and see what he needed to work on. But the one thing he can't handle is the physical embarrassment of double-chipping it or stabbing at it. He could take the embarrassment of hitting a snap hook out of bounds, or hitting a fat wedge and making a double bogey. The yip thing embarrasses you to your core as a tour player, because it makes you feel like you don't have control."
That's the old "stuck between patterns" matching release points" defense that we heard early last year at Phoenix and Torrey Pines, which always struck this observer as as logical as "the dog ate my short game".
But Rudy also checks in with a guy that most hoped had been banished from polite society:
Greg Norman knows about the stresses that come with re-emerging on the tournament scene. He hadn't played in a major for three years before the 2008 British Open, where he would hold the lead after the third round and end up tying for third. After that tournament, he essentially stopped playing tournament golf because he saw that he couldn't compete at the highest level. He says that Woods' up-close experience at Hazeltine could have at least temporarily discouraged him about his readiness for a comeback.
"When you're someone like Tiger at Hazeltine, you watch Sergio and Phil battling it out and you start asking yourself, 'Would I be able to match a 63 with a 63?'" says Norman. "You start talking to yourself."
That's the lesson he drew? The guy who likes to brag that he would have beaten Tiger, comes out in his fifties after three years away and finishes third, and that proves he isn't competitive?
Last on this subject is a typically thoughtful piece from Jaime Diaz, and that name will cue the reader to click through and read the whole thing. I'll confess to being unsure how to react to this premise:
Woods didn’t specifically say how he was vulnerable, but even as his surrogates talked in generalities, the mind of close observers went to the phenomenon of chip yips.
It remains jarring and even surreal to watch a compilation video of Woods seemingly helpless around the greens in December 2014 at his Hero World Challenge, and then at Phoenix and Torrey Pines. And though he somehow overcame a recurrence at the 2015 Masters, the problem resurfaced on the final nine at his last official tournament appearance, the Wyndham Championship in August 2015.
Woods’ chipping woes remain a lingering, and possibly permanent problem. It’s not overstatement to call them a potential career ender. Besides all the strokes lost, for a touring pro there is the traumatic humiliation of such a proportionally big miss in such a little space, either from a chunk that travels only a fraction of the intended distance, or a blade that doubles it (or worse). Woods’ most recent short-game stats speak for themselves. But what’s more telling are off-the record eyewitness accounts from his practice sessions in Florida that the problem persists.
Of course, the chip yips could be a sub-manifestation (along with first-tee jitters) of a larger issue, one that many all-world performers have fallen prey to: stage fright. Indeed, the greater the fame and the attendant expectations and obligations, the harder it can hit.
As David Owen made clear in his treatise on the subject, there's no doubt some linkage between pressure and yipping, though there's much we don't know. On the other hand, people that yip do so in the absence of pressure as well.... But doesn't Jaime remember that Tiger assured us that he didn't have the yips, it was just a matter of matching release points and patterns and solar spot activity.....
Jaime closes with thoughts from a Ted Talk, including this that does seem quite apt:
“Perfectionism is the belief that if we do things perfectly and look perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of blame, judgment and shame,” Brown said in a recent article in Fortune magazine. “Perfectionism is a 20-ton shield that we lug around, thinking it will protect us, when in fact it’s the thing that’s really preventing us from being seen.”
Though you'd think a golfer, even this one, would have given up his allusions of perfection long ago....
He's Got Some 'Splainin' To Do - I thought we had moved on, but Peter Willett is back and wants to clear up a little misunderstanding:
"My ‘rant’ was not a criticism of ALL Americans, but a satirical jab against a very select
Danny, having just received word that Pete's back in print. group of individuals who are wholly deserving of ridicule - those that scream 'Baba booey,' belt out 'Mashed Potato,' and bellow ‘Get in the Hole,'" Willett said. "These were the only imbeciles to which I was referring."
"The truth is, these hecklers are one of the things I love about the Ryder Cup," Willett said. "Under normal circumstances, from the comfort of my sofa, I would have cheered every ‘cheeseburger,’ giggled at every ‘get in the water,’ and retweeted the video of McIlroy being asked to ‘suck a d---’. It’s fun to witness the desperate, resort to the weird, hoping for recognition."
Now this is a clear violation of the first rule of holes, but it gets even better.... Despite being a Brit, he seems very attuned to the topical issues of affirmative consent in today's U.S.:
"Shouting out during someone’s pre-shot routine, or screaming on their backswing, or dishing out vile abuse to players’ relatives, or demanding fellatio without the appropriate signals that fellatio may in fact be given, is not an accepted element of your average golf tournament," Willett stated. "But at Ryder Cups, certainly in America, we risk ruining the competition if we don’t endure it, or destroying the tournament’s reputation if it continues unchallenged. This is a dilemma far more worthy of discussion than my attempt at a joke - what to do with the classless b------s?"
Are we sure that Rory didn't indicate consent? Peter, your fifteen minutes of fame has now officially lapsed and your brother really would appreciate if you would kindly go missing.
Predictions Are Hard.... - Especially those about the future, but Alan Shipnuck takes out his Magic 8-ball and comes to a similar conclusion to my own:
Since Hazeltine I’ve watched highlights of the Patrick Reed-Rory McIlroy cage match at least two dozen times. It never gets old. In the last few decades of the Ryder Cup, the best showmanship has been from the European side; think Seve, Sergio and Poults. What made Reed’s macho posturing so instantly iconic is that for once it was symbolic of U.S. supremacy. Golf fans on both sides of the Atlantic can expect plenty more Reed highlights in the years to come because the big takeaway from this Ryder Cup is that the balance of power has very suddenly and very dramatically tilted to the Americans. Phil Mickelson’s comment that the purpose of the task force was not to win one Ryder Cup but eight of the next 10 suddenly doesn’t seem so outlandish. Whether it’s the stock market or sports betting, Mickelson is always working an angle, and his big-picture prediction has merit for a number of reasons.
Alan, are you sure you want to use that stock marker reference with our Phil? When is that Billy Walters trial?
I agree with Alan's basic premise that the U.S. roster looks to be the stronger, such this projestion:
The Professor? I'm sure he had some fun with that.... I have two basic quibbles with this. First, a minor point, the fact that an Andy Sullivan had a bad week means absolutely nothing looking forward. The real issue as Alan notes is that core after Pieters is getting very long in the tooth...
But the point that has to be made is that virtually every U.S. roster looks stronger than every Euro roster... it's just the nature of the beast. I'm sure that's not an issue in the age of the miracle task force, but still....
Surprised to see Phil on that roster above? He will, after all, be 48 years old.... But Phil is plenty phull of himself after his hostile takeover of the Ryder Cup, and he plans on being there:
"It's been 22 years since there have been 10 Americans that have been able to beat me [out to make the team], so I don't know why it would stop now,'' Mickelson said Wednesday at Silverado Resort, where he will play in the Safeway Open. "I plan on being on the team in France and absolutely one of my goals is to play in France because I've never been on a winning Ryder Cup team over in Europe. I want to win a Ryder Cup over there, and I want to be part of that as a player.''
So, you've been on at least five teams that have lost their away games, but we should be cheering to put you on one more?
What Matthew Wrought - Hint: They call it the Low Country for a reason.... Here's how the 18th hole and iconic lighthouse at Hilton Head's Harbour Town Golf Links look after Matthew's visit:
Coming Your Way - Did you notice Jon "Rahmbo" Rahm on that 2018 Ryder Cup roster? Good catch, as the Spaniard via Arizona State wowed the crowd at The Wasted last year. On that note, Golf.com has a slideshow of their sleeper picks for the new Tour season that may be of interest.
We can agree that The Professor and Beef should not qualify as sleepers, given their recent ubiquity. And we've all been put on guard for Patrick Rodgers and Ollie Schienderjans, we just await them breaking through. But I'm old enough to remember when this guy was still wet behind the ears:
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| No matter what happens this season, Lovemark can always say he's made our list of sleepers more times than any other golfer. But now that the issues with his back seem to be behind him, we're confident the former NCAA individual champion and top-ranked amateur will do enough this year to guarantee he won't be, um, back. Lovemark is coming off the best year of his pro career with a 49th-place finish in the FedEx Cup standings. |
And I'll confess to being curious to see hos this guy's career unfolds:
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| Before 2016, you may have known Wesley as half of the Bryan Bros trick-shot duo. Then he earned a spot on the Web.com Tour and had one of the best seasons in the developmental circuit's history. Bryan won three times to earn a "Battlefield Promotion" to the PGA Tour. In four starts on the big tour, he made three cuts, including a T-8 at the John Deere Classic. The only trick he's focused on now is conjuring up a first PGA Tour title. |
I actually feel a little bad for his brother....
#tour sauce - These crazy kids and their hashtags.... I believe this guy came up with it originally (after all, he calls himself a club twirl savant) , though it's hard to tell any more. My first recollection of its use was in conjunction with a pimp strut by Billy Horschel after an especially pleasing iron shot, though of course I can't find that video.
So the subject at hand is club twirls, and this has been the gold standard:
But we have a new contender, Frenchman Alexander Levy, who demonstrated his skill at the art form in his recent Euro Tour win. I'm unable to embed the video but you can see it here.
That's a strong performance, but did you hear about the Euro Tour's Hero Challenge? Shack explains:
One of his first big efforts debuts Tuesday at theBritish Masters (2:30 pm ET live on Golf Channel), as a one-hour, 8-man, under-the-lights match play event is unveiled at The Grove. The field includesAlex Noren, a two-time winner on the European Tour in 2016, US Open runner-up Shane Lowry, tournament host Luke Donald, Andrew ‘Beef’ Johnston, Andy Sullivan, Bernd Wiesberger, Alex Levy and Jeev Milkha Singh.
Well, it was pretty cool, even I have to admit.... Again you'll have to click through to view the video, but I do have a screen grab for you:
Any chance we could get flames and ProTracer on the fifteenth fairway at Augusta? Just to even the playing field....
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