Friday Frisson

I have time, just not all that much time, so let's have at it...

Tiger, The After-Action Report - Well, that was a strange day, but how could it have been otherwise?   I'll rely on Shack to play Tour guide through the bomb damage assessments....

Alan Shipnuck does well in setting the scene, as well as providing a short retrospective of the man's career from his unique perspective.  I like this from Alan:

Yes, it had been encouraging to see Woods smiling again during the practice rounds here at the World Challenge, but even as everyone around me has been drowning in the

tsunami of hype accompanying his return (live tweeting a practice round, fer fook's sake!) I hadn't quite been able to share in the excitement. No, the overriding emotion has been dread. Woods talked this week about kicking off "phase two" of his career, but this isn't the end of the beginning, it's the beginning of the end. If things go wrong in this latest comeback -- with his swing, his body or, most alarmingly, his psyche -- that's it, fin. There will be no coming back from the abyss yet again. And for all of Tiger's flaws, it is inconceivable to imagine the game without his oversized presence.

Are we allowed to say "fook" on a family blog?   How's this war OK Corral imagery?

He was dressed in a badass all-black ensemble, befitting the high noon tee time. The World Challenge is a mostly meaningless hit-and-giggle event, but the tee was crowded with reporters, cameramen and assorted rubberneckers. The most dominant golfer of all time does not have the luxury of easing back into competition. The mood was tense, even fraught. As Woods settled over the ball, waggling his discordant new TaylorMade driver, it was so funereal quiet you could hear decorative flags flapping in the distance.

I agree that the white driver seemed wrong in so many ways, as did the B-logo on his golf ball.

Now I should note that thanks to Cablevision I only caught the proceedings as Tiger was in the midst of making a mess of thew Par-5 ninth, on his way to four sixes in his final ten holes.

Jason Sobel captures the yin and the yang of it, first the early assertion of "I'm Tiger Woods, dammit":

No, the moment he truly started evoking memories of the guy who's won 14 major

championships occurred on the next tee, the par-3 eighth, when his impact through the ball was immediately followed by one of his first audible exhortations during the round. 

"One yard!" he shouted, a command he often gave when he was hitting his best shots. 

The ball listened, nestling just a few feet from the hole en route to a fourth birdie and a share of the lead.

The yang was this: 

This was a textbook round for someone who hadn't played in a while: Make a few nervy pars just to ease away the tension; ride the wave of adrenaline up the leaderboard; get overtaken by fatigue down the stretch. 

If we needed further proof, though, of Woods' return to familiarity, it came after the round, when he wouldn't acquiesce to that last observation. 

He was asked a reasonable question about whether he'd run out of gas before making those two doubles. 

"I wouldn't say that," he offered. "I just made some mistakes."

As sports fans we've seen this movie too often to not appreciate where we are.  The stubbornness never leaves, but that can result in our heroes (think Y.A. Tittle with his head bloodied) looking all-too human....

But golf is a little different in that the physical demands are more subtle, and there's a long, rich history of our great players summoning the stuff late in the day....  More often than not they come up short (Hogan Snead, Watson, Norman), but not always (Jack).  

So, what to make of that which we saw?  Here's a couple of takes, first Will Gray:

Had Woods more evenly dispersed his scorecard, had one of his closing doubles instead come amid the three-birdie run that highlighted his opening nine, perhaps the tinge of disappointment might have evaporated. But he didn’t, and they didn’t, and a 73 is more difficult to stomach after Woods appeared on his way to something in the mid-60s.

Hank Haney:

 Lastly, Steve DiMeglio:

As long as his body — and especially his back — holds up, Woods will lift championship hardware again. Doesn’t matter if he’ll turn 41 on Dec. 31. The game’s needle will trigger appreciative cheers in trophy ceremonies on the 18th green in the future.

Those last two guys are way ahead of themselves,,,,  But I do agree with their basic premise, that Tiger showed the necessary raw material with which to support a comeback.  He showed the physical ability, clubhead speed if you will, to be out there with these guys.

The latter's health caveat is a big one, but even if you stipulate to that, there's just so much talent out there that winning is much harder than even in his 5-win 2013 season.  

Guys have deadlines and need to file stories, so conclusions must be drawn.  Likely we'll see a mixture of the good and bad over the next three days, but what's likely more important is what happens between now and Torrey Pines, when one expects to see him next.

A couple of mostly unrelated Tiger items to enhance your day.  First, do give this Mike Johnson item on Tiger testing equipment a full read.  I'm not even going to bother with an excerpt, as it's just a fun look behind the curtain.

I had always heard that when testing equipment, that Tiger had such a feel for it that he could accurately guess the results (spin rate, carry distance and ball speed) before the numbers flashed at him.  

And because you probably need a laugh, Golfweek has an amusing slideshow of Tiger's regrettable fashion choices....  It's all here, Snoop Dog, the Mom jeans and the leather, but here's one that I didn't remember:

Is that MJ's jacket, or does he just buy his four sizes too large?

One last note.... the second shot I saw him his was the chunked chip on No. 9.  Most observes have noted but not obsessed over it, which feels about right.  But if I were Hank or any of the others awarding him future titles, I'd like to see more evidence that the Y-word is not in play.  Just sayin'...

Ladies Ascendant - The LPGA has had a good run, which will continue into 2017:

LPGA pros will get to play in more events and for more money again next year. 

The LPGA will feature 34 official events in 2017, 35 with the Solheim Cup, according to the schedule released Wednesday. 

That’s one more official event than was played this year. 

Total purses will be up to $67.35 million, surpassing this year’s total of $63 million in official events.

The new schedule features four new events, the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Ladies Open, the McKayson New Zealand Women’s Open, the Indy Women in Tech event at Brickyard Crossing in Indianapolis and the Thornberry Creek Classic in Green Bay, Wis.

It's all good, and the new events seem well-considered....  They need to be in the right kind of communities, with marketing hooks of interest.  There was also this:

The biggest surprise of Wednesday’s announcement is that match play will return to the LPGA schedule for the first time since 2012. The Lorena Ochoa Invitational, a tournament that struggled to get a strong field in recent years, will transition into the Lorena Ochoa Match Play and will feature a field of 64. The event will also move from the fall to the spring and will be held at Club de Golf México in Mexico City, the tournament site since 2014.

Three domestic events, the Yokohama Tire LPGA Classic (Prattville, Ala.), Swinging Skirts LPGA Classic (Daly City, Calif.), and Coates Golf Championship (Ocala, Fla.) will not return. 2017 will mark the first time the LPGA hasn’t competed on a Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail property in 19 years.

Good to strengthen Lorena's event, which seemed to not have a reason to be...  Good riddance to the Coates played on that hideous Ocala course with its copy-cat holes, but the RTJ Trail and Lake Merced are places to which they should try to return.  

Perhaps the biggest item is that the USGA stuck a crowbar into its wallet and added $1 million to the Women's Open purse.  Bethany Lang could not be reached for comment....

There's other, I mean udder, stuff, but time is of the essence.  Perhaps tomorrow...