It's a wasteland out there, but we have just a few items for your delectation....
A Bad week To Quit Smoking - Not a good week for historic Scottish links, though this latest hits your humble blogger quite hard. Yesterday we had the Montrose Links, fifth oldest on the planet, covered in sand. Today we lost this notable clubhouse:
The clubhouse at Machrihanish Golf Club in Scotland was destroyed on Wednesday after a devastating fire hit the property.
According to the Daily Record, officials were called to the course, which sits on the west coast of Scotland, around lunchtime. The early reports are no casualties, but the club's steward lived in a flat above the clubhouse.
Now calling it the west coast of Scotland doesn't quite do it justice, as it's at the far end of the Kintyre Peninsula. Let's see if this map helps:
The golf club is located on the western side of the peninsula, at the southern end. One can fly into Campbeltown, but the more traditional route is via two ferries from Troon.
The area is also known as the Mull of Kintyre, the unfortunate beneficiary of this Paul McCartney ode....It's really quite dreadful, and the blurry video seems a curious choice, but other than that it's great.
The clubhouse and first tee sit on a spit of land originally used as some kind of military facility, creating the ultimate cape hole. Here's the hole description from Golf Club Atlas:
It's a great opening shot, though not all that difficult. There's no reason to bite off too much, as all of the Mull is to the player's right. But it's unusual and dramatic, and an otherwise delightful links....
I still have swag that I wear from their pro shop, and we might just have to make a return visit to help them recover from this loss. I erred greatly in not visiting The Machrie on Arran during our trip there, and given Arran's large number of distilleries I can't see Employee No. 2 objecting to a visit.
The Year That Was - Folks are continuing their wistful walks down memory lane, including two offerings devoted exclusively to rules issues. Ryan Herrington offers his under this header:
The 16 most gut-wrenching Rules decisions of 2018
My gut is notoriously slow to wrench, so watcha got, Ryan?
During the second event of the Web.com Tour season in January, Gibson got a one-stroke penalty when his caddie, Brandon Davis, picked up his ball from a hazard on the final hole of the tournament rather than Gibson. The extra stroke dropped a none-too-happy Gibson from T-2 to solo third and caused him to throw his putter cover at Davis in disgust. Davis wasn’t Gibson’s full-time caddie, but the 32-year-old Australian made sure he wasn’t his part-time one any more either, firing Davis for the blunder. That night, Davis took to social media to offer an explanation for his actions, taping an eight-minute video in which he cited Decision 26-1/9 to try to exonerate him.
Oh man, I had forgotten that one.... If you've forgotten or never saw it, the appeal here is that hostage video from caddie Brandon Davis, in which he strangely tries to pull the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed look with a troubling amount of success. Good times!
You guys know most of these, and kudos to Phil and Lexi for appearing twice. This one was new to me, and I might need a diagram to understand it:
Iowa men’s golf team/Gonzalo Leal, Marquette Invitational
We’re declaring this one from October the winner for the weirdest rules spat of the year (which is saying a lot). We’ll go slow for clarity’s sake. Leal, a Hawkeye freshman, hit his drive right on the 12th hole during the tournament’s second round at Erin Hills. Uncertain what happened to it, he hit a provisional ball. Leal found what he thought was his provisional ball after believing his original ball was in a water hazard, and decided to invoke the two-ball rule (Rule 3-3), playing the provisional ball and a ball dropped next to the hazard where he believed the original ball had gone. After hitting both balls on the green, Leal found threeof his balls on the green. It turned out his playing partner, Northwestern’s Lucas Brecht, actually mistakenly hit Leal’s provisional ball, and that the ball Leal thought was his provisional was actually his original ball. (Brecht got a two-stroke penalty for hitting a wrong ball). Having played his original, Leal finished up the hole with that ball and thought he was in the clear. But since he invoked the two-ball rule, by playing the original ball Leal technically was playing the wrong ball and actually couldn’t go back to his original ball. And because he didn’t correct his mistake, he technically had no score for the hole and thus was disqualified. Worse, that DQ caused the entire Iowa team to be DQ’d from the event since they were only playing with four golfers that round due to their fifth player withdrawing due to injury. The DQ dropped the team to last place in the event, which caused them to fall from No. 14 in the Golfweek Sagarin Rankings to No. 49.
Thanks for going slow, but maybe slower still next time?
Of course the winner has to be Doris Chen and her mother that kicked a ball back into play.... Yanno, family values and all.
This second offering from Dan Killbridge at Golfweek is replete with category errors, of which this was my fave:
5. J.B. Holmes, Farmers Insurance Open
With the final round at Torrey Pines already approaching six hours, J.B. Holmes took an agonizing 4-plus minutes to hit a single shot on the 18th hole. He was roundly slammed on Twitter and reenergized debate surrounding slow play on Tour.
I don't consider this a rules issue, as evidenced by he absence of a ruling.... However, it isn't often one sees and actual touring professional unable to pull the trigger. I mean except for Kevin Na back in the day.... But to waste that amount of time, and then to lay-up into the rough forfeiting any remain chance to win the event. Come back Chip Beck, all is forgiven....
Also wistful is Alex Myers, with his list of most buzzworthy moments, for which I'll tease you with Alex's montage:
That middle panel is quite hilarious, so why not give Alex a click. And forgive the spoiler alert, but his worthy winner is Ho-sung Choi, though it's an honor just to be nominated.
Stat So? - Christopher Powers encroaches on Mark Broadie territory with this:
14 of the most telling statistics from the PGA Tour in 2018
11 — Number of players who ended win droughts of at least at 4½ years on the tour. They are as follows, from longest dry spell to shortest: Charles Howell III (11 years, 9 months), Paul Casey (8 years, 11 months), Kevin Na (7 years, 9 months), Keegan Bradley (6 years, 1 month), Ted Potter, Jr. (5 years, 7 months), Ian Poulter (5 years, 5 months), Tiger Woods (5 years, 1 month), Phil Mickelson (4 years, 8 months), Webb Simpson (4 years, 7 months), Matt Kuchar (4 years, 7 months) and Gary Woodland (4 years, 6 months). Lee Westwood also ended a victory drought of 4 years and 7 months on the European Tour at the Nedbank Challenge. Westwood’s last PGA Tour win came at the 2010 FedEx St. Jude Classic.
It does seem like there were an unusually high number of such comebacks... But he elides the oddest factoid involved here. To wit, that Kooch and Westwood's dates overlap exactly. They started and ended their winless streaks on the exact same Sundays.....
This one is interesting:
4.57 — Tiger Woods' par-5 scoring average. The number matches the worst mark in Woods' career; in 2013 he also had a 4.57 average. However that year it was good enough to tie him for fourth on tour. This year, that mark tied him for 24th, by far the worst standing of his career in the category. Prior to this season, Woods had never finished worse than T-6 for a season in par-5 scoring average. In nine of his first 10 seasons on tour, he finished first, including eight straight to start his career.
One could almost guess that this reflects the way the guys send it these days, though I've been reliably informed that there's nothing to see here.... Nope, nothing at all:
278.9 — Average driving distance in yards in 2018 for Brian Stuard, who ranked dead last in that statistic among the 193 players that qualified. Averaging 300 yards on the nose didn’t even get you in the top 50 last season. In 1998, 300 yards would have ranked first on the PGA Tour, and 278 would put you in the top 30.
Nothing to see here....
68.00 — Saturday scoring average for both Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, tying them for first overall on the PGA Tour. Each, however, had just one victory, and though both were impressive (Woods’ 80th career W at the Tour Championship, Rory’s Sunday charge at Bay Hill), they probably both think they could have had more. Their Sunday scoring averages played a role in that, with Woods’ dropping nearly two strokes to 69.75 (41st on tour) and McIlroy’s two full strokes to 70.00 (T-54 on tour).
I thought Rory's would be better, as he's perfected the art of the back door Top Ten.
Mikey's Moments - Mike Bamberger scores some interesting comments from the relaxed crew at the PNC Father-Son, including this from Vijay:
MM No. 1: Singh, talking amicably about his settlement last month of a nasty piece of litigation with the PGA Tour known in some quarters as the Deer Antler Spray suit: “It was good for both sides, I guess. I’m glad it’s over. It lingered on and on and on and it’s nice to just finally have it behind me. The PGA Tour has always been a greatorganization. It was just a [PED rule] that didn’t pan out. Everybody knows about it, I’m glad it’s over.”
Singh is 55 and he had no problem rattling off his January, February and March schedule because it’s pretty much what it’s always been: “Sony. AT&T. L.A. Honda. Bay Hill. TPC. And then I’ll see what happens.” In other words, regular Tour.
Sony is the Hawaiian Open. AT&T is Pebble Beach. Honda is Honda. Bay Hill is the Arnold Palmer event. TPC is the Players Championship. About the only Tour-preferred corporate name Singh missed was Genesis, which is what Tiger Woods calls the annual stop at Riviera, longtime home of the Los Angeles Open. This year, Singh finished seventh and made $1.7 million on the PGA Tour Champions.
MM denotes mellow moments, the vibe of the F-S for sure. I'm grappling with my grief at this settlement, and also a bit curious as to how many zeros were involved. But Shack is here to harsh the mellow on a different issue:
Singh, 55, also outlined his plans to keep taking up a spot on the PGA Tour by playing a full West Coast Swing schedule. Charming.In the last two PGA Tour seasons, Singh has missed 17 of 28 cuts. His best finishes came at the 2017 Players (T16) and 2018 Masters (49th).
Not sure if Shack missed a better finish at LA, but his point is valid regardless. It's time for Veej to go gracefully (or not) into that good night.
This is a sweet one for sure:
MM No. 5: Jack Nicklaus is playing with his grandson, GT, Gary’s son. GT is the kid who made a hole-in-one in the Wednesday par 3 tournament, taking over for a shot while serving as his grandfather’s caddie at the Masters in April. Big Jack was asked about that ace on Friday and what he said is astounding and is so revealing about Nicklaus. He said:
“GT had hit my pitching wedge on the practice range. First time he ever saw it. He had a jumpsuit on, which was pretty tight. He made a beautiful golf swing. Knocked it on the green and into the hole. Gary Player was jumping up and down. Tom Watson was jumping up and down. I think I was crying. He was obviously ecstatic. It was great. I walked down the path and Curtis Strange was in the booth. He looked back at me and said, `How does that rank at the Masters for you?’ And just went like that.”And Nicklaus held up his index finger. No. 1.
This from the man who won the Masters six times.
“What you do with your own kids or grandkids is far more important than anything I have done, he said.
If that doesn’t show the perspective of age, what could?
Expect any less of Jack?
Time to get on with my day....Enjoy yours.
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