Weekend Wrap

It's been quite the weekend here in Utah, with 24" of snow reported since I arrived.  The biggest portion thereof greeted us Saturday morning, which combined with newly-opened terrain created a mini-powder day.  It's a little early for that, but see how you enjoy my blogging on tired legs.

My Hero - I was free to focus on football, as a certain Spaniard pulled away from the small field.  From the invaluable 30-second guide:

Who Won: Jon Rahm 

Why it Matters: If Rahm’s Sunday singles win over Tiger at the Ryder Cup was a bold-

lettered statement, his Sunday win in Tiger’s tournament was a punctuation mark. Starting the day tied with Henrik Stenson and Tony Finau, the Spaniard ran away from all contenders with a closing 65, four strokes clear of Finau in second place. And they weren’t just any contenders. The field featured 14 of the top-20 ranked players in the world.

Most Meaningful Meaningless Birdie: Tony Finau

Speaking of the World Ranking, Justin Rose was on the verge of reclaiming the top spot from Brooks Koepka, thanks to his sizzling Sunday 65. That changed, though, when Finau’s birdie putt dropped on the final hole, knocking Rose out of a tie for second place in the event. The Englishman may soon get back on top, but his ascent will have to wait. 

Best Job Shrinking the Course: Jon Rahm

The long-hitting Spaniard made the most of Albany’s longest holes, playing the par-5s in a scorching 13 under for the week, including birdies on all five par-5 on Sunday.

That tee suspended in mid-air says "Europe", or at least the broadcast crew caught him using such a tee.  There are two interesting stories from this event, but first this from the weekly Tour Confidential panel on the winner:

4. Finau’s playing partner at the Hero, Jon Rahm, made no mistakes on Sunday. He was bogeyless en route to a 65 and four-shot victory. While Finau couldn’t keep

pace with Rahm, he did birdie the 72nd hole to prevent Justin Rose from taking over the No.1 spot in the World Ranking from Brooks Koepka. That top spot has been held by several different players in the last few months. Does Rahm get there at some point in 2019? 

Zak: I’ll take the easy route and say no. There are too many phenomenal players for him to compete with for that top spot. He plays well in a lot of big events. He’s really good. But the lot of DJ, Rose, Koepka, Thomas, et al are an easy team to choose over Rahm getting to No. 1. 

Sens: Any number of guys could get scorching hot and snag No. 1. It’s been happening over and over the past few years. But Sean has it right on the odds front. Stellar as he is, Rahm would not be listed as a favorite to grab it, not with so many others in the running. 

Dethier: Nah, I don’t think he gets there. But will Bryson?!

Not the best formulation of a question, as the churn at the top of the OWGR isn't inherently interesting.  Better would have been an open-ended question of what to expect from the Spaniard in 2019.  A breakthrough is coming, but whether it arrives in '19 is speculative....

Obviously they asked a Tony Finau question before getting to the winner, so we might as well listen in:

3. Tony Finau entered the final round of the Hero tied for the lead with Jon Rahm and Henrik Stenson but made a costly double bogey and two other bogeys to shoot 69 and finish alone in 2nd. The 29-year-old entered the week with the most top 10s without a win since the 2016-17 season (20), 10 more than the next guy, Luke List. Are Finau’s Sunday woes evidence that he lacks the clutch gene? 

Zak: No, screw the clutch gene. Rory McIlroy hasn’t been much different the last few years, and we know damn well he still has a tendency for “clutch” golf. Finau is still ascending. He’s just played his first Ryder Cup. He’s a newbie to the world top 15. You play A LOT of clutch golf to get there. He’s also just kind of now feeling like he can stand up among his peers — the best in the world. Let’s not treat the many top 10s and few wins as a bad thing. It’s a process, and Finau is going to have a yooooge 2019. Book it now. 

Shipnuck: Wait, Rory is still clutch? I hope that’s true because his soft play in clutch situations over the last couple of years has left me wondering. Anyway, I salute Finau’s consistency, and it’s true that learning to win is a process, but he has now had a ton of experience in these situations. It’s time to cash in a few of these opportunities.

I'm as surprised as Shippy on the Rory thing.... They go back and forth on the clutch-gene thing, though it's a bit early to opine as to whether Tony might be one of those guys whose career is defined by not winning.  

Rules Stuff -  Unless you've been in a bubble, you surely heard about Tiger's brush with the rules mob on Friday.  Here's the background on that:

It’s safe to say that Tiger Woods is not happy with the way his second round ended Friday at the Hero World Challenge. After all, he made a double bogey at 18. But it

could’ve been much worse. He was nearly penalized for a bizarre second shot from under a bush off the 18th fairway. Woods took the shot from one knee with a limited backswing. Here’s the part that’s even more odd: Woods did indeed double-hit the shot, but he was not penalized because HD slo-mo video replay was required to detect the violation.

Here's the determination as per Mark Russell of the Tour:

“Well, Tiger was under a bush and we did determine that he did make a stroke at it. He didn’t scrape or spoon or push the ball. And when he did that, Tiger said that he did not think he hit the ball twice. Looking at it in the regular speed on a high-definition television, you couldn’t tell that at all, but when you slowed it down to ultraslow motion high-definition television,you could see where the club [sic] did stay on the clubface quite a bit of time and it looked like he might have hit it twice, but there’s no way he could tell that.” 

“In this age of high-definition slow motion television, we’ve got a decision at 34-3/10, Limitations on Use of Video Evidence. Basically it says if the player did not know that he did that and the only way you can tell that is by using this type of slow motion technology, he’s exempt from the rules, so there’s no penalty there.”

I saw many of those slo-mo replays, and it looked to my eye more like a scoop than an actual double-hit.  This has triggered comparisons to Tiger's rules contretemps back in 2013....  No, not the drop on No. 15 at Augusta....  No, not the drop on No. 14 at the Players either, he had quite the year.  But rather the ball moving at the BMW:

Woods acknowledges that slow-motion, high-definition replay of the shot shows that he did hit it twice. That makes this situation different from the one in Chicago in 2013, when he refused to acknowledge that he caused his ball to move when attempting to remove small bit of a branch leaning against it. Many people did not find Woods credible that day, including the rules officials. It was clear on the videotape that his ball had moved.

That's from Mike Bamberger, who continues in his role as the conscience of our generation as relates to the rules changes.  Here's his general take:

The rules of golf are complicated but the logic behind them is not. The everyday strict adherence to the rules of golf, and to the spirit in which they were written, is what separates golf from virtually every sport. Which brings us to Tiger Woods’s play, in his own tournament, on the 18th hole on Friday. 

Woods said he did not know he had hit his ball more than once as he played from under a bush. Let’s start there. The player is assumed to be credible. Without evidence that contradicts a player, the player’s word is his bond.

But we do have such evidence, Mike.  We've just decided to not use it....

Mike then cites these examples of players not taking the high ground:

All that leaves is spirit. And spirit is impossible to define. 

But spirit is at the heart of the game and something that’s under great stress right now.

Lexi Thompson at the ANA Inspiration in 2017 could have said, “That was a bad marking and I understand why I’m getting the penalty.” She didn’t. 

Dustin Johnson at the 2016 U.S. Open could have said, “That ball moved and I can’t say I definitely did not cause it to move, so I’ll take the shot.” He didn’t. 

Woods at the 2013 Masters could have said, “I started the problem here by taking an incorrect drop and I’ll fix the problem by dropping out of the tournament.” He didn’t.

Any of those actions would have improved the game. Any of those statements would have been a way for a player to say, “The game is bigger than I.” Any of those statements would been an opportunity for the player to take control of the situation in the most honorable way. That’s golf.

I'm mostly in agreement with Mike, but each of the cases he cites includes major process errors from the rules officials themselves.  And DJ basically said just that, though admittedly he had the benefit of a sufficient lead that the one stroke wasn't a factor....

But he doesn't come down where you think he will on this one:

Following the examples cited above, your instinct might be to say that Woods should have said on Friday: “I didn’t know what I had done at the time, but now that I see it I’m going to take the shot, despite the rules change from last year that covers this situation.” You might say that is the true spirit of the rules. By the way, a player can do that. A player can always call a violation on himself. 

But a more considered opinion is this: Woods did the right thing, for himself and for the game. In all serious tournament golf, and Tiger’s 18-player Hero World silly-season event is of course serious tournament golf, the rules must be applied in the exact same way to every player. Otherwise, you cannot trust the results. 

Every time there is a complicated ruling, precedent is being set. Had Woods added a shot to his score because of what he had learned about his play on 18 from hi-def replay, he would have put a burden on the next player in that situation to do the same. And that would not be fair or right.

Egads, I didn't see that one coming..... I fear that I might be the last man that wants to take the rules of golf seriously, but this is crazy talk.  Forgive for not taking the time to organize my thoughts better, but I'll just throw some stuff against the wall:

1. I had thought that the hi-def replay issues were meant to address the more subjective issues, such as drops.  Not only is it hard to identify precisely where a drop should be taken, but a rules official called in after the fact doesn't have access to those replays at the time a ruling is made.    
2. That said, I'd feel a whole lot better about this if those rules officials were actually doing their jobs.  Alas, the Sun Kang-Joe Dahmen incident demonstrated that to not be the case.  Combined with other incidents involving Hideki Matsuyama and others, word has gone out that players only need to say the right thing to a rules official to get the ruling desired.
3. I'm a simple guy....  If you have video documenting a violation prior to the signing of a scorecard, the penalty should be assessed.  I have reason to believe Tiger knew what happened, it was a weird swing for sure, but we all knew the possibility when we saw it live.

The TC panel tries to address this, with predictably muddled results:

1. Tiger Woods wasn’t penalized for double-hitting a shot out of the bushes on Friday at the Hero World Challenge, even though he admitted it was double-hit after seeing the slo-mo replay. (According to a recent rules revision, Woods was not penalized because HD slo-mo video replay was required to see the violation and Woods couldn’t have been reasonably expected to detect the double-hit in real time.) Our Michael Bamberger argued that Woods did the right thing “for himself

and the game” by not taking a penalty even though he could have. Any issues with the HD rule? Does it in any way violate the spirit of the game?

Sean Zak: The “right thing” that Tiger could have done was 1. Take a legit backswing, whether that’s two inches or two feet. Then 2. Hit the ball forward and think about how that felt. If you do both those things legitimately, and think you only hit the ball once, didn’t scoop or push the ball, then yes, Tiger was fine in what he did. I’m very skeptical about it, beginning with the lack of any backswing. That being said, I have no issue with the high-def rule, as long as players are honest enough with the entire process. Kudos to the first player who rewatches something in HD and notices that, “Yeah, that did feel weird,” en route to penalizing themselves. 

Dylan Dethier: I was initially of this same camp, that this was the perfect opportunity for Tiger to step up and show his appreciation for the integrity of the game and all that — quieting any doubts about previous sketchy rulings in the process. But Bamberger’s piece has me convincedthat Woods did the right thing for his fellow players. The way the rules are now set up, players should accept the rulings handed down by officials. Golf’s officiating is getting more similar to other sports, and I think that’s okay.

I don't know where we go from here, but no doubt word has spread through the locker room, when speaking with rules officials "Deny everything".

Rank Nonsense -  There was way too much discussion during the broadcast of the turmoil at the top of the OWGR, which only brings to the surface the fact that this event has no business offering OWGR points.  So, get a load of this:

As Shack notes, not only is this a ridiculously small field, but because of the time of year many in the field aren't in mid-season form.

Quite obviously silly, reinforcing the two-tier nature of the ranking model.  As geoff notes, the more important function of the rankings is at the top fifty-sixty level, which gains entry to majors and WGC's.  This shouldn't have much effect there, given the elite nature of the field, but it obviously discredits the entire process.

I've got much more to cover with you nice folks.  But there's freshies to be had out there, so how about we just get together tomorrow?