Weekend Wrap

So, how did you enjoy the PGA Tour off-season?  I know, it just goes by in a blur....

A Fine Bromance... - When last we chatted, Tiger was playing the drama queen and waiting until the last possible moment to commit to the Frys Safeway at Napa Valley's Silverado resort.  Commit he did, so game on.... As for his pairings, you won't be disappointed...  First, for the main event:

Phil Mickelson may get his wish to play with Tiger Woods at the Safeway Open next week. 

Think they'll talk about this happy time together?

According to a report from the San Francisco Chronicle, Mickelson and Woods are slated to be paired together during the first two rounds Thursday and Friday at Silverado Country Club. 

Mickelson originally toyed with the idea once Woods announced he was planning to play the event. “That would really be fun,” Mickelson said. "I would love it." As excited as this news would make fans, let's keep in mind tee times are not typically released until Tuesday of the event, and the PGA Tour did not confirm the pairing when reached by GOLF.com.

I'll know it's love when Tiger commits to being a cart-driver assistant captain for Phil...  He's still moving the needle, as even his pairing in the under-card is news:

Just when we thought Tiger Woods' return to the PGA Tour couldn't get any better, it does. 

Adding to the hype surrounding Woods' return to competitive golf at next week's Safeway Open is a report from the San Francisco Gate that says Woods will tee it up with NBA superstar Steph Curry during the Wednesday pro-am.

I'd have thought that Steph would more appropriately play with Phil, as perhaps he could help him extend his vertical leap to at least 6 inches.

As to what to expect from the Artist Formerly Known as Tiger Woods, here's one poll:

I've been reliably informed by the Trump Campaign that online polls are valid and reflect the make-up of the electorate, but I have deep concerns about 13% of our fellow golf fans.

The Tour Confidential panel took on this very question, and were more realistic in their expectations:

1. After a year-plus-long layoff, Tiger Woods will make his return to the PGA Tour

this week at the Safeway Open, the 2016-17 season opener in Napa, Calif. What would you consider to be a successful week for Woods?

Josh Sens: Playing through the weekend injury-free. That would be my measure. As for Tiger himself, you've got to think he has a higher threshold for success. 

Jeff Ritter: I don't even think he needs to reach the weekend to call this first event a success. Getting through it injury-free is job No. 1. Next is showing no sign of those dreaded chips.

I thought this was a curious, though not uninteresting, digression:

3. Besides Woods' return to the course, the other storyline that is sure to dominate will be the clubs the 14-time major winner uses. Woods hasn't played since Nike announced it's transitioning out of the golf equipment business, so it's unknown if Woods will unleash a new collection of sticks. At this stage in his career, how much branding power does Woods still wield? 

GODICH: Plenty. He is arguably the most intriguing player in the game these days. Certainly in the top five.

VAN SICKLE: I agree with Joe, there's no downside to having Tiger wield your hammers. He's Tiger, dammit. No one is going to blame the gear if he doesn't play well. And if he does play well, hey, maybe it is the clubs.

Dammit, Janet, he's Tiger Woods.... For the record, I believe that's our first Rocky Horror Picture Show reference here on Unplayable Lies.   OK, perhaps that's not important now....

The guys make clear that Tiger offers an equipment sponsor a ton of upside with little downside risk...  But, as we've previously discussed, what makes this interesting is the issue of how much guaranteed money would be on offer, inasmuch as it's unclear that he'll be healthy enough and/or competitive.

In other Tiger droppings, he hung with Maverick McNealy and Patrick Rodgers (Stanford, get it?) at Saturday's game against Washington State:

And the current Stanford golf team posted this funny compilation of homages to the man:

The World's Best Pro-Am - There was some actual golf played this week at the Home of Golf:

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland (AP) Tyrrell Hatton won his first European Tour title after

taking apart the Old Course at St. Andrews for the second straight day in an impressive display of front-running at the Dunhill Links Championship on Sunday. 

The 24-year-old Englishman, who had a three-shot lead overnight, followed up a course record-tying, bogey-free 62 at the home of golf on Saturday with a 6-under 66 in the final round. He finished on a total of 23 under par (265). 

Hatton won by four shots from Richard Sterne (66) and Ross Fisher (67) to earn about $800,000 - easily the biggest pay check of his career.

Hatton had a strong second-half of the season, with high finishes in the Scottish and Open Championship, as well as at Baltusrol, making this header inevitable:

Tyrrell Hatton wins Alfred Dunhill Links for 1st Euro Tour title, and becomes intriguing Ryder Cup prospect

To me the Euro team looks so weak that I'd call him less of a prospect and more of a mortal lock.  But two years is an eternity....

You know my love of golf of the linksy persuasion, hence my header above.  But there's also this, which I suspect would be frowned upon at the Crosby Clambake:

No offense to Tyrrell Hatton, who picked up his first European Tour title in the Alfred Dunhill Championship at St. Andrews. But the even better story involved Masters winner Danny Willett teaming with his caddie Jonathan Smart to win the pro-am title. Taking his looper (and presumably paying his way) probably won't win him too many American fans following last Monday mornings' Tweeting barrage, but it's a start.

This from the lucky looper:

 C'mon everyone, bygones!

Save Muny, Please - This is your feel-good story of the morning:

The National Trust for Historic Preservation named Lions Municipal Golf Course on

Wednesday to its list of America’s most endangered historic places, calling the course a “civil rights landmark” with an uncertain future.

Lions Municipal, also known as Muny, is considered one of the earliest municipal golf courses in the former Confederate states to be desegregated, if not the first. At the recommendation of the Texas Historical Commission, the National Park Service added Muny to the National Register of Historic Places in July. Situated along Lake Austin Boulevard in West Austin, Muny occupies land owned by the University of Texas and leased to the city of Austin. 

A local group known as Save Muny, which has been active in efforts to preserve the course, says its research shows that two black youths walked onto the property in 1950 and began playing in brazen disregard of Jim Crow laws. City officials decided to let them play anyway. Thus, the course became integrated quietly and peacefully, well before violent confrontations that characterized desegregation of many public accommodations elsewhere in the South.

Golf of course has an unfortunate history of exclusion, but how great to have an opportunity to celebrate those city officials that quietly allowed a gross injustice to be remedied.

This story makes me feel so good that I'm even going to pass on the inevitable quote tying it to the continuing struggle for social justice....  see, it's not just my golf club that has changed.

Tommy's Honour, Coming To A Screen Near You - News from Shack about the movie of one of his and my favorite books:

Look out Tin Cup! We may only get thirty chances to see you next year! How will Cheech get by without those residuals!?

Anyway, I can't wait to see the film adaptation of one of my favorite books. You can see clips of it here and read this Q&A with author Kevin Cook from earlier this year.

Since I've been handing out blog business cards right and left at the new place, let me backfill this story for new readers.  Tommy's Honor (none of us know which spelling to use)  is the wonderful Kevin Cook history of Old and Young Tom Morris. a page-turning account of the father of golf and his supremely talented son.

The origins of our game are obscure, there's no Doubleday or Naismith of golf, but there's little doubt where the came grew to prominence.  It was in the coastal towns of Scotland, where St. Andrews, Prestwick and Musselburgh fought for primacy of the evolving game.  As with Lions Municipal, golf was subject to the class distinctions of the period, it was a gentleman's game, but men like Alan Robertson and Old Tom carved out a prominent role, and its' quite the absorbing tale.

That said, I'm deeply skeptical that a film can capture this vast tapestry of life in any engrossing way.  I'll keep an open mind, but if you've any interest in the origins of our game, this book is a marvellous place to start.

Playing The Role of P.J. Willett at this Morning's Performance....  - People say the darndest things, don't they?  Fellow Belgian Nicolas Coelsarts makes life way more difficult for his countryman with this:

Thomas Pieters, Europe’s standout performer at last week’s Ryder Cup, has indicated

that he wants to earn a PGA Tour card. But Nicolas Colsaerts, his fellow Belgian and close confidante, does not expect him to play in the US permanently because he “doesn’t like Americans that much”.

“We have talked about it [playing in the US] a little bit,” Colsaerts said of his friend, who studied at the University of Illinois. “I don’t think he would want to be surrounded by Americans 365 days a year. People think that because he went to the US that he only wants to play the PGA Tour, but he has shown at the Ryder Cup, with his shushing of the crowd and the way he plays, that he doesn’t like them that much.”

With friends like that....  But seriously, did anyone interpret his play and playfulness as, you know, that he hates us?  Inevitable walk-back is here.

 Headlines I Can't Avoid - How about this from old friend David Owen:

The indescribably ineffable awesomeness of match play

What follows is a simple example of match play madness, not the slightest bit unique.  I'm not sure of the target audience, as anyone perusing The Loop undoubtedly has a minimum of three similar stories just from this weekend's fourball matches.  The pity, of course, is that we get to see the big boys play our format so rarely....

Predictions Are Hard, Especially About the Future - We'll go out on the TC panel's predictions for the forthcoming 2016-17 wraparound season:

SENS: Patrick Reed lives up to his Captain America reputation by winning his first major: the U.S. Open. 

RITTER: I'll say the other Ryder Cup star, Rory McIlroy, gets back to his major-winning ways and returns to No. 1 before the end of the summer. I want to pick him for the Masters, but his weird juju around Augusta scares me. So, put him down for another British Open while sailing back atop the World Ranking. 

PASSOV: Ultra-competitive Jordan Spieth fixes his ballstriking, and with it comes a new run of 30-footers that drop with the kind of regularity we saw in 2014 and 2015. A newly relaxed and focused Paul Casey contends in all four majors and re-establishes his position in the world's top 10. The breakout star will be Jon Rahm, the former ASU star from Spain, who has the length, game and swagger to bag multiple wins in 2016-17.

Those seem reasonable enough, but can I get back to you in January, when I'm emotionally prepared for the golf season to begin?

 OK, I Lied - OK, one more quick hit, because I so loved Travelin' Joe's response:

6. Pebble Beach has raised its greens fee from $490 to, brace yourselves, $525. What's the most you've ever spent on a round of golf (and, yes, we're well aware that golf writers don't like to pay for golf) and was it worth it?

PASSOV: I paid more than $800 for my wife and me to play Pebble Beach back in 2004. We had met through golf, and I wanted her to experience Pebble once in her life. We both enjoyed some real highlights, and I felt it was worth the cash. The next day, we were treated to a comped round at Cypress Point, and within 24 hours, Betsy had forgotten all about Pebble Beach...until the credit card statement arrived.

Ahhhh...Cypress Point.  I was lucky enough to play there twice in the '80's, and I believe it was Sandy Tatum that dubbed it The Sistine Chapel of Golf.   It's been a long time since we've done a Separated at Birth, but do you see a resemblance?

I know, it's uncanny..... Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.