Weekend Wrap

A bit of a delayed start to our blogging, but I'm still on Utah time....  that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

253! - yes, the conditions were as benign as they can be, but it's still a mind-numbing number for a professional event, an average of 63.5 per 18.  Wow!

HONOLULU (AP) -- Challenged only by the record book, Justin Thomas won the Sony Open on Sunday with the lowest 72-hole score in PGA Tour history. 

To the winner go the goils....

Thomas capped off his wonderful week at Waialae that began with a 59 with his second straight victory. He two-putted birdie from 60 feet on the par-5 18th and closed with a 5-under 65 to set the record at 253. 

Tommy Armour III shot 254 at the 2003 Texas Open. 

"It's been an unbelievable week. Unforgettable," Thomas said before going to sign his historic card. 

Make that two weeks.

While everyone is focused on the Maui- Oahu double, that's three wins in five starts in this wraparound season.  So, time to start probing for the cosmic significance of it all, no?

We'll use the Tour Confidential panel as our tour guide if you don't mind:

1. After shooting an opening-round 59 at the Sony Open in Hawaii, Justin Thomas said that if he had to choose one or the other, he'd take the sub-60 score over a victory in the tournament. Thomas made that a moot point with his record-setting seven-shot victory, but it begs the question: Do you agree with him?

Josh Sens: Personally, I'd take the victory. That Thomas sees it differently reminds us 1) how successful he has been at such a young age and 2) how much money there is in the game. It's pretty dizzying to think that a player of his age could already be thinking about side-records over wins, but that's where we are in this modern age of sports. And then there's the tournament itself. No way he'd have the same view if this were, say, the U.S. Open. 

John Wood: I agree with Josh, and I suspect had Justin not won the week before he would have said the same. A 59 is great, but at the end of the day, thanks to captain Furyk, you'll need to go two lower now to actually set a record. Could 59 be the new 62? Uh Oh. 

Michael Bamberger.: Oh, got to go with the W. Wins make your life possible. Fifty-nines are freaks of nature and good bar-room talk.

Oh c'mon, you guys are showing your age...  Who doesn't want to be linked with the greats of the game, revered names like Chip Beck and Paul Goydos?

But if had the innate confidence that winning events wasn't going to be a problem....  and, as an added bonus, this is something that uppity Jordan hasn't done.

2. A day after Thomas went historically low, Woody Austin shot 59 at the Diamond Resorts Invitational, which used the Stableford points system. Since 2013, there have been six sub-60 rounds posted on the PGA and Web.com tours, including a pair of 58s. Is it time to end the 59 Watch and set our sights a little lower? 

Sens: The pros are always going to keep setting their sights lower. For those of us looking on, I don't think we need to look past the 59 so much as we have to keep the many 59s in context. What was the course like? The conditions? The setup? The pressure of the moment? Not all 59s are created equal. 

Wood: See above answer! I think they do. Fifty-nine will always be a magical number though. I think the reason is that most of these really good/great players will have scores of chances to win golf tournaments in their careers, but unless their last name is Furyk they'll only have one shot at a 59. That's just how difficult it is. Remember Phil's reaction to the horseshoe lipout in Phoenix for 59 (the one in which Bones was taken out immediately by a sniper)? And Phil is a guy with five majors and over 40 victories, so the rarity of the occasion has everything to do with it.

Bacon: Why not love and embrace every run at 59?! I've been so confused by people around social media this past week trying to find a way to discredit the idea of a sub-60 round. Think about the legends of the game: Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods … none of those guys were ever able to fire a 59 on the PGA Tour. It's really, really hard to do, even if the guys are mentally stronger now and refuse to fear the idea of going historically low. I love each one, and will continue to love them. Did you see the way Jordan Spieth reacted when that eagle putt dropped for Thomas? He knew how special it was, and he's the fifth-ranked player in the world with multiple majors.

OK, I think including the round-bellies is a red herring, the greater indicator is that in addition to Thomas we had two other legitimate 59-watches in the same week.  Obviously a combination of factors that allows such low scoring....

Bear with me a second, as I type out of both sides of my mouth.  First, athletic breakthroughs come when the conditions permit.  As  for instance, the best pitching year ever might be the 1.12 ERA posted by Bob Gibson in 1968, which not surprisingly was a mini-dead ball era, after which they lowered the height of the mound.  This doesn't diminish the achievement, it just provides the context for why it happened when it did....

But golf is different, because the players make their own schedules.  While it's true that Tiger never shot a 59, that's mostly because he didn't play the events where it was possible to shoot 59.  Where have these happened?  At the Deere, the Sony and resort courses in the Coachella Valley.... and that's why the list of players that have done it is so underwhelming.... I mean Stuart Appleby for God's sake....

3. Despite collecting four victories in his first 70 PGA Tour starts and setting the Tour's 72-hole scoring record at the Sony, Thomas has played largely in the shadow of friendly rival Jordan Spieth. Both men are the ripe old age of 23. Look into your crystal ball and tell us which player will have achieved more when the calendar turns to 2025. 

Sens: Spieth. The competition just keeps getting stiffer and winning big tournaments keeps getting tougher. Spieth already has two majors. All things considered, that's a huge head start. 

Wood: Agree with Josh again. The head start is going to be very difficult to overcome. Justin will win major(s), but there are a lot of great players who have only won one or two majors in their careers. I know I'm jumping the gun here, but the interesting thing to me will be Paris in 2018. I'd have a hard time seeing the Reed/Spieth pairing break up, but if it did I'd say a Spieth/Thomas pairing would be a distinct possibility. And if it does happen, I'll play with Patrick, because I think he could figure out a way to win even from the places I'd put him.

I'm a little shocked at the extent to which Jordan runs the table here, although I don't understand the specificity of the 2025 date.  No doubt that Jordan's lead is substantial, and I don't know that JT is my pick from his generation, but I've long had my doubts about the arc of Spieth's career.  He's an awfully short hitter compared to these other guys, and Over time we've seen a number of similarly equipped players fail to maintain their level of play.  Jordan is a great putter, but is he a better putter than Luke Donald?

Reed Takes Out Rory, Again -  I'm guessing that Patrick Reed is not on the guest list for Rory's wedding, as he's done it to the Ulsterman again, albeit indirectly:

Storm beat McIlroy on the third hole of a gripping play-off at the BMW South African

Open. And although the Northern Irishman was understandably bemoaning the continuation of his opening-week curse – this was the fifth time in the last seven years that he has finished runner-up in his first event of the year – he was not about to begrudge the success of his friend. As McIlroy said: “What a story it is.” 

In October, Storm, the popular 38-year-old from Hartlepool, was in despair when believing that a final-hole bogey at the Portugal Masters had cost him his European Tour card – by a mere €100. He left the Algarve thinking that he no longer had a job and was considering what to do next.

But then the American Patrick Reed failed to fulfill the minimum number of events when skipping the Final Series and so Storm was handed a reprieve. And there he was, at the Glendower Country Club near Johannesburg, captilasing on his second chance in one of the most gutsy scenarios imaginable.

I love these stories of middle-aged golfers finding something and reclaiming their status, think Vaughn Taylor or Billy Hurley.  And the really nice part is that Rory sees it as well....

Like JT, Rory will have plenty of wins in the future, so he can be magnanimous. But this is the foreMcIlroy refused to blame the upper-back problem which he believes was caused by all the testing he did in the off-season as he chose new clubs following the withdrawal of sponsors Nike from equipment-making. However, he was in obvious discomfort and spent hours on the physio table and was still popping anti-inflammatories in the play-off.boding part:

“I am flying to Dubai and then will go for an MRI tomorrow just to see what’s up with this joint in my back,” he said. “It was manageable this week with tape and a few pill, but it’s not 100 per cent.

"Part of me really wants to make this week because there is so much to play for with world No 1 on the line. But at the same time there is so much to play for over the whole season and I don’t want to jeopardise long-term goals for short-term gain. Hopefully, I’ll be good to go.”

Rory, you ignorant slut!  There is nothing important to play for this week, and the next important round of golf is a Thursday in early April.  

I'll just add this from Kooch's looper from the above-linked Tour Confidential:

Wood: The MRI. What's the line from Jurassic Park? "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." There is no question that weightlifting, strength training, etc., will give you short-term benefits in golf, but I think the jury is still out on what it does to your body in the long term when it comes to playing competitive golf. Will we see more explosive but shorter careers? I think it's very possible. So seeing guys who look like they're in incredible physical condition (and they are) like Rory and Jason come down with injuries is a little scary.

John Wood has been a great addition to the panel, and I hope it's a permanent arrangement.  But isn't this the issue of the day?  My only adder is that I'm not sure that the short-term benefits are all that obvious....

Golf And Politics -  Andrew Breitbart once famously said the politics was downstream from culture, though I'm unclear as to whether that includes golf....  In any event, golf and politics (or, at leats, politicians) has always been an interesting subject, all the way back to Ike's spike marks in the oval office and JFK hiding the fact that he was an accomplished player.  At least until outed by Seinfeld....

We've three unrelated items and there's no clear ordering of them, so let's simply have at it....

David Owen takes to the pages of The New Yorker to write of his experience playing golf with our President-elect, and it conforms to our worst expectations of the masthead.  Now don't get me wrong, Trump is a buffoon and in David's skillful hands that's gonna be a fun ride, so give it a read.  Here's a sample of the tasty morsels to be found:

He called the editor of Golf Digest to complain, and then he called me, on my cell phone. I was in the city on a reporting assignment unrelated to golf, and had the surreal experience of being chewed out by a future President of the United States while standing

The photo in front of fountain: Priceless!

among the gravestones in the burial ground next to Trinity Church. He wasn’t upset that one of the article’s illustrations had been of a golf ball wearing a turf toupee that looked a lot like his deeply mysterious hair, or that I’d mentioned his asking two little girls at Mar-a-Lago if they wanted to be supermodels when they grew up, or that I’d described nearly tipping him five dollars after momentarily mistaking him for his club’s parking-lot attendant, or that I’d written that he’d introduced one of his club’s members to me not by name but as “the richest guy in Germany.” He was upset that I hadn’t written that he’d shot 71—a very good golf score, one stroke under par. 

I hadn’t written that because he hadn’t shot 71. We hadn’t been playing for score, and we had given each other putts and taken other friendly liberties—as golfers inevitably do when they’re just fooling around. I said something to that effect in the politest way I could think of, but he wasn’t mollified. He was also angry that I’d described his wedge game as “poor.” (On several occasions, he’d had trouble with shots inside a hundred yards, both during our round and on the practice range beforehand.) I reminded him that I had mainly written very flattering things about his golf game, and that I’d mentioned his victories in three club championships and had quoted praise from his caddie and his pro (“You have a very nice bicycle, Donald, even if it’s not as nice as your friend’s”). But none of that made any difference. He wanted the number, and the fact that I hadn’t published the number proved that I was just like all the other biased reporters, who, because we’re all part of the anti-Trump media conspiracy, never give him as much credit as he deserves for being awesome. Such is his now familiar habit of acting like a sore loser even when he’s won.

It's this little throwaway line to which I object:

In fact, if Trump could be persuaded to spend his entire term playing golf, we might all be better off.

David, you're way better than that bit of hackery....   Since time immemorial, there has been outrage about Presidential golf, though of course limited to the golf of presidents of the OTHER political party.  

What bothers me is that W. is cited in the same 'graph, but without noting that he stopped playing golf in the face of Iraqi casualties.... He did not want a grieving parent or wife to see video of him on the golf course.  And where was Obama after September 11, 2012?  David?  If you're going to go there, it would be nice if you could be remotely even-handed on the subject....

Moving on, we had this NY Post story about Obama's post-presidential golf a few days back, and now comes the predictable backlash:  

Simon Atlas, a former chair of the club’s admissions committee, said he would be

“honored” to have Obama as a member. He added that the club had never applied a political test for acceptance.

“A person’s political affiliation was never a consideration,” said Atlas, former treasurer of the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee. “We looked at [a person’s] philanthropy, at standing in the community, at reputation. These other things never came up.”

 Yes, I'm quite sure that the club's members exhibit the diversity of political opinion to be found....say, in the offices of The New Yorker.

While everyone will of course play their assigned roles, the story is of interest to me...  The old joke is that my fellow Jews earn like Episcopalians but vote like Puerto Ricans....  Forgive the racism, but Norman Podhoretz wrote the book on this subject.

I assume what's happening here is that a few right-thinking members of this Jewish club see Obama's overt hostility to Israel for what it is, while most remain tied to their liberal worldview...  What's interesting is how this might play out in the context of a country club, where small minorities have historically been given a heckler's veto...  I suspect that Obama and his people will be smart enough to avoid this fight, but I'll have popcorn at the ready just on the off chance....

Lastly comes the most serious of these three offerings, and by far the most scathing....  Andrew Ferguson (not to be confused with the golf writer Doug Ferguson) is a talented writer for The Weekly Standard, and see if you don't agree that this is quite the header:

Golf Comes to the Killing Fields

I know that the Kim family are skilled golfers, but Pol Pot as well?  Alas, no, these killing fields are way closer to home.... Don't miss Andrew's lede, though I'm going to dive in where he turns to the point at hand:

An almost comical case of point-missing arose again this week in Chicago, when the city awarded a $1.1 million preliminary planning contract to an engineering firm for a project

in Woodlawn, one of the South Side neighborhoods that has become a killing field. Of course the neighborhood is starved for capital investment, private employers, good jobs, and safe schools that empower children with a useful education. So Mayor Rahm Emanuel had an idea. He wants to raise tens of millions of dollars to…watch out…build a luxury golf course in Woodlawn's Jackson Park.

Emanuel, of course, is President Obama's former chief of staff and the man credited with bringing the Obama presidential library to the South Side. Indeed the library and the golf course will be adjacent to one another. So the project is being presented as a kind of two-fer: the library will bring tourists to the South Side and the golf course will give them something to do once they get there, besides pay tribute to Obama and dodge gunfire.

As we saw in Rio, a government incapable of attending to its citizens' most basic human needs, and I think the avoidance of gunfire fits, nevertheless has the resources available to build an homage to Obama....

But by all means, let's talk about what a buffoon that Trump is....  and last weekend's death toll on the South Side?  Nothing to see here....

Sorry, but I needed to get that off my chest....