Weekend Wrap

Back to normal Monday blogging, with actual results to discuss...  And due to the wonders of time zones and DVR's, I actually was able to watch both the football and golf.

Maui (Non) Wowie - The Tournament of Champions is Exhibit A for one of the important counts of our multi-count indictment of Former Commissioner Ratched... and let me just enjoy a moment, as that's the first I've referred to him using the F-word.

It should have it all.... the win requirement to garner an invite, the lead spot on the schedule, the drop-dead gorgeous locale and the prime time television slot.  Demonstrating their ability to f-up a one-car funeral, the event has lost its raison d'être, and the softness of the course the last few years has denied us the primal pleasure of watching trundling golf balls....  all we had this year was Bubba's pink Volvik.

Enough of my grumbling, our first weekend wrappage of the 2017 season:

Justin Thomas had to sweat it out more than he wanted to enjoy that view down the 18th

hole at Kapalua on Sunday. 

Thomas had a five-shot lead with five holes to play when he was caught in a battle with Hideki Matsuyama down the stretch in the SBS Tournament of Champions. Thomas responded with a defining shot in his young career, an 8-iron approach he ripped from 214 yards to 3 feet on the 17th.

Matsuyama, one shot behind and needing birdie to stay in the game, ran his 30-foot putt about 8 feet by the hole and three-putted for bogey. Thomas knocked in his short putt for a three-shot lead, and he went on to another birdie for a 4-under 69 and a three-shot victory.

This will incite a resumption of the speculation as to how good Justin Thomas can and/or will be....  It was all on display, the prodigious length, soaring irons and deft short game.  But also on display was a certain hinkiness around the greens, misplayed short shots and, most alarmingly, two shots of the "long-and-wrong" ilk that almost cost him the event.  On the first of these he got incredibly lucky, as explained:

Thomas really did not miss a shot until the ninth hole, and that's when he got a huge break. 

With the wind stiff and in his face, he got quick with his driver and hit a snap-hook into the knee-high weeds left of the fairway. He hit a provisional for a lost ball and was about ready to abandon the search when a TV spotter was summoned to give an indication where it went. They found the ball, and it was sitting up a few inches above the roots, allowing Thomas to at least hack out into the fairway. 

He followed with a 3-wood onto the green for a two-putt par after starting with a shot that made double bogey appear likely.

OK, so let's beat the Christmas rush, how good do we think Justin can be?  This guy might be a tad biased, but he's a knowledgeable source:

“Yeah, I think it's potentially floodgates opening for him [Thomas],” said Spieth, who waited greenside at 18 to congratulate his friend when it was over. “The guy hits it forever. He's got a really, really nifty short game. He manages the course well. He used to hit more drivers, and he's dialing back a bit now and hitting like a trusty 2-iron out there that he can still hit 285 yards, you know, with a little bit of roll. So, really excited for him. It's awesome. It's awesome to see. He's going to be tough to beat next week, too.”

Since it's still Tiger's world, the Tour Confidential panel was asked why Thomas might become the first since you-know-who to win the TOC and a major in the same year:

Wood: Well, being around Justin, you can tell that winning is the most important thing to him. He is a confident player, and he has it in his head that he can do what his friend Jordan has done, and that's win major tournaments. I think Justin may in fact play with a little chip on his shoulder regarding Jordan, and he wants to climb out of that shadow. Justin wants to be a historic player, meaning wins and majors and Ryder Cups, and that mindset is what will propel him to those goals. He's certainly not afraid of those situations, and that's half the battle.

To remind, that's John Wood, Matt Kuchar's caddie, for whom this is becoming a regular gig....

Kind of an amusing concept, that without the motivation of seeing his friend's success, that he's be just another ball-beater.... But there's probably something to it.

Before we move on, what to do about this newly moribund event?  New Commish Jay Monahan continues his Jekyll-Hyde persona, first as the good doctor:

The PGA Tour is exploring the possibility of spicing up its opening event of the new year with some help from the LPGA. 

The Tour is considering sharing its Tournament of Champions stage in Hawaii with the women. 

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan tells Golf Channel that talks are in the works with LPGA commissioner Mike Whan to stage a similar women’s event jointly with the men’s in the future. 

“You could see men and women here at the Tournament of Champions,” Monahan told Golf Channel’s Rich Lerner as part of a wide-ranging interview that will air Monday on Golf Central and Tuesday on Morning Drive. “That is something we are thinking about and talking to Mike and the LPGA about. We would like to see that happen. We have some interest from sponsors.”

Wow!  There really is a new sheriff in town, as the old guy would never share the stage with anyone.

It's a very cool idea, though the execution could be challenging.  My concern would be that the ladies game would look particularly inferior on this unique stage.  But if the course is to be as soft as in recent years, perhaps that's no longer as much of an issue.

The Wild, Wild Web - For years I've been advocating that golf tournaments use Monday-Wednesday to avoid competing with the big Tour.  Admittedly, I've been dispensing this advice mostly to the LPGA Tour, but still...

Proving that there really is something in the Ponte Vedra water supply, the Web.com's season-opening event began yesterday....  you might have seen the "Sunday is the new Thursday ads, which avoid the more important virtue, that being that Wednesday is the new Sunday.  Quibbles aside, we like their newfound willingness to experiment, and we'll cut them some slack when such things don't work out as planned.

Now the event in question comes with a world class name:

The Bahamas Great Exuma Classic at Sandals Emerald Bay

I advise you all to hold out for the great exuma....none of that run-of-the-mill exuma for my readers.  But they caught some extreme weather, and not everyone was happy:

The Web.com Tour going with a Sunday start for its opening event was an unorthodox move applauded by many. The players in the Bahamas this week, though, probably wish the tournament didn't start until Thursday. 

To say conditions were difficult in the first round of the Bahamas Great Exuma Classic is an understatement. A colossal understatement. And this video will give you a pretty good idea of what players were dealing with:

You'll have to click through to see that video, and Shack has more here.   How windy and nasty was it?   Well, the forlorn Tommy Gainey wasn't the only guy wearing two gloves, and I got this screen grab of the pin headed towards horizontal:

Good times.....

Alas, Poor Us - It's passing strange that the first out with this news is Curmudgeonly James Corrigan, a fine golf writer but most certainly on the wrong side of the pond:

Jim Furyk is set to be announced as the US Ryder Cup captain in the next week, as the Stars and Stripes stick to the system which brought their second victory this century at

Hazeltine last year.

It is understood that the choice of the selection committee – which included Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and last year’s winning captain, Davis Love – had come down to either Furyk or Fred Couples for next year’s renewal at Le Golf National, just outside Paris. 

It was Furyk’s involvement both as an assistant to Love and as a member of the famous “Task Force” set up after the 2014 defeat, America’s third in a row, that swayed the decision. The 46-year-old’s enthusiasm for the role is also likely to have been a factor.

OK, that "second victory" is a tad mean-spirited, as is the accompanying photo.... though pretty much any hat-less photo would be.

Furyk is no doubt a pleasant sort and clearly well-liked by the men against whom he competes.  He has a reputation for grittiness, no doubt the result of a homemade golf swing and his comparative lack of length.  Problem is, that the event into which he will lead the U.S. squad seems tailor-made for said grittiness, but it's been in short supply:

Some sceptics might look at Furyk’s playing record and wonder if this is a wise appointment. He has been in nine teams but only two winning ones and, together with Mickelson, holds the US record for most matches lost – 20.

However, there can be no denying his passion for the event and this has best been summed up by his reaction in defeat. Never was the pain more keenly felt than in Chicago five years ago, when he had been one of the principal villains in the infamous 'Meltdown at Medinah’, as the US conceded a 10-4 advantage to lose 14½-13½. 

Then he sat together with his 11 team-mates and captain Love at the post-match press conference and stared out a journalist who had asked what had hurt more – his failure when leading in the US Open or his inability to see off Sergio García when one up with two to play? Half an hour earlier he had sunk to his haunches after watching a six- footer lip out for par. Two Furyk bogeys had suddenly given the Europe miracle substance.

Yes, some skeptics, sorry sceptics, might bring up this unpleasantness...  One up with two to play and he couldn't find a par.....   perhaps he's being awarded the captaincy simply to avoid the possibility that he'd qualify to play?

Rory, Explaining - Paul Kimmage, who has some history with him, scores an interview with Rory, and probes some interesting story lines.  Of most interest, are these comments about the Olympics:

Well, I'd had nothing but questions about the Olympics - 'the Olympics, the Olympics,

the Olympics' - and it was just one question too far. I'd said what I needed to say. I'd got myself out of it, and it comes up again. And I could feel it. I could just feel myself go 'Poom!' and I thought: 'I'm going to let them have it.'

Yeah, but maybe I shouldn't have reacted in the way that I did. But Olympic golf to me doesn't mean that much - it really doesn't. I don't get excited about it. And people can disagree, and have a different opinion, and that's totally fine. Each to their own.

Yeah, I mean when it was announced (that golf was to be an Olympic sport) in 2009 or whatever, all of a sudden it put me in a position where I had to question who I am. Who am I? Where am I from? Where do my loyalties lie? Who am I going to play for? Who do I not want to piss off the most? I started to resent it. And I do. I resent the Olympic Games because of the position it put me in - that's my feeling towards it - and whether that's right or wrong, it's how I feel.

 The source material is in Q&A format, so if it seems disjointed that's on me. 

But as I noted way back when, being from Northern Ireland put Rory in an uncomfortable position for the Olympics, in a way that's hard for many to appreciate.  Divided loyalties doesn't capture the unique sense of identity that the microscopic, six-county quasi-country imparts to its citizenry.  You'll just have to take my word for the pressure the young man would have felt... over the decision of which team to play for?

I once asked our friend Lowell Courtney a naive question about this, and rather than answer me he wrote a blog post on the complicated subject.  Rory also had this in response to one of his more contentious comments last year:

Okay, I went a bit far. But I hate that term 'growing the game'. Do you ever hear that in other sports? In tennis? Football? 'Let's grow the game'. I mean, golf was here long before we were, and it's going to be here long after we're gone. So I don't get that, but I probably went a bit overboard.

Shack had this riposte:

As for the tired "grow the game" phrase, it's wonderful to see a player single it out. 

May I propose "sustain the game," which would allow McIlroy and others not look hypocritical when working to inspire kids to take up the game, something he clearly enjoys. Because we know the "grow" is merely a product of fear that the numbers have, gasp, flatlined.

Fair enough, but I do think that Rory's perspective needs reinforcement.   As so often the panic-stricken calls to grow the game come with the sense that our stodgy, boring game couldn't possibly appeal to these sophisticated millennials.....  if it doesn't, then it's their loss, because our game is timeless.

Jay, Explaining -  Also spewing verbiage is new Commish Jay Monahan.... as noted above, it's a bit of a mixed bag...  I've credited all of the initiatives on the schedule and competition formats, though no doubt he shares his predecessor's love of MBA-speak:

"As much progress as we've made with our platforms, we weren't moving fast enough. We're not producing enough video content," Monahan said. "Our players are their own networks and have their own profiles. We had - and I'll take full responsibility for this - a tendency to think about what we didn't want to have happen at our tournaments. ... We're taking away from our ability to grow." 

He cited restrictions on players using smartphones during pro-ams as one example.

Sounds reasonable, but has Stephanie Wei reclaimed her credentials?   The Tour has been overtly hostile to anyone else disseminating content related to their events...

This is profoundly disappointing, Mr. Hyde:

- The PGA Tour is the only sport that doesn't announce fines or other punishment. That doesn't sound as if it will change. 

"I know that there is a desire to know everything that happened but ... we're a family. If there is an issue in your family, you deal with it, and you deal with it with your family member," he said. "That has worked really well for us. If it weren't, we'd be making changes.”

No, you're not a family and I don 't actually think it is working well for you.  You're not leveling with the public, and at some point it will come back to bite you in the butt.

And this from Geoff is just bizarre:

“I don’t think it’s just the performance he had at the Hero World Challenge,” Monahan said. “I think the way his energy, his countenances ... the joy that he had that week lends itself for all of us. 

“It’s very exciting to think about what he could potentially accomplish in the coming weeks.”

 Which is the stranger, his choice of noun or the plural?

Although maybe the plural is right, as Rory had these comments from that interview above:

I’m drawn to him, yeah. He’s an intriguing character because you could spend two hours in his company and see four different sides to him. When he’s comfortable and he trusts you — and his trust (sensitivity) is way (higher) than mine — he’s great. He’s thoughtful. He’s smart. He reads. He can’t sleep so that’s all he does — he reads stuff and educates himself on everything. But he struggles to sleep, which I think is an effect of overtraining, so I tell him to calm down sometimes. He’d be texting me at four o’clock in the morning: ‘Up lifting. What are you doing?’

OK, most will no doubt focus on the 4 a.m. lifting, and who can blame them...  But for me the bombshell is that Tiger reads?   because I have it on good authority that all he does is play Call of Duty.

Ireland On My Mind -  Because it's never too early to think of summer travel to Ireland, enjoy this Golf Digest listing of the 100 best golf courses on the Emerald Island, including this spectacular photo of County Down:

Be still my foolish heart...

I'm heartened by the strong performance of beloved Ballyliffin, with their two tracks at Nos. 11 and 18.