Back In The Saddle

I'm safely ensconced in Unplayable Lies' Western HQ, and even watched a little golf last night.  Just a little, but Kapalua delivers the eye candy for sure....

Scenes From Maui - This week isn't really about results, way too early to get worked up about that.  Still, you know how they always tell you the beware the injured golfer?  Sick golfers, as well:

Now Kevin Tway is making his debut coming off his first PGA Tour win at the Sanderson Farms Championship, and he’s dealing with health issues of his own. 

He’s also leading the tournament after a 7-under 66 in Round 1. 

“I played a few holes in the pro-am (Wednesday) and then on hole five it felt like I was walking on a water bed the whole hole,” Tway said. “So I withdrew from the pro-am, went to the doctor, had like an ear infection and sinus infection. Got some pills and feel a little better today, but still a little dizzy.” 

Tway had seven birdies and no bogeys, taking advantage of calmer morning conditions before the wind really picked up in the afternoon. He’s also a strong fit on this course as the second-longest hitter on Tour this season, with extremely generous fairways and plenty of room to send it.

Quite the disconnect between his scorecard and body language....  Of greater interest is the first look at the new rules in play, including everyone's favorite brainiac:

KAPALUA, Hawaii – Justin Thomas said he couldn’t really take himself seriously if he ever holed a winning putt with the flagstick in. Doesn’t like how it looks. 

It’s obvious Bryson DeChambeau has never cared about optics, which is why he said he was going to putt with the flagstick in all the time once the modern rules of golf went into effect this week at the Sentry Tournament of Champions. 

Some people laughed but DeChambeau was serious, and he backed it up Thursday while leaving the flagstick in the majority of the time in Round 1. 

He also topped the field at 3.868 strokes gained putting Thursday and suddenly this whole flagstick thing doesn’t look so ridiculous anymore. It looked like it might have helped on at least one or two birdie putts as DeChambeau shot 4-under 69 to move to T-6.

Oh, it still looks ridiculous....  But this seems unnecessarily hurtful:

He was playing with Dustin Johnson, who probably spent less time studying the modern rules than DeChambeau spent picking his shirt this morning. Johnson told him before the round he was cool with the whole flagstick thing and to have DeChambeau’s caddie Tim Tucker just handle the flag all day to avoid confusion.

C'mon, when has his lack of knowledge of the rules ever hurt DJ?  

Golf.com is all over this subject, with this from Dave Pelz supporting Bryson's strategy:

I conducted my original Pin In/Pin Out test in 1990, and published the results in the December issue of GOLF Magazine. The testing was performed with a special putting

device built to roll putts accurately aimed with a laser—and a true, pure roll—from two feet away. We rolled putts at different speeds hitting different parts of the pin on flat, uphill and downhill sloping greens. The test results were conclusive: You will hole a higher percentage of putts when you leave the flagstick in.

The reason for this effect is that a significant amount of energy is lost from a putt’s speed when the ball hits a fiberglass flagstick. The speed-loss enables gravity to pull the slower moving ball down into the hole more often. Even though balls have changed since my testing, holes and flagsticks have not, and the “energy-loss” effect will still win the day.

How is it that Bryson and Peltz haven't found each other?  Aren't they perfect for each other?

But, as I think it was Bones that noted on the broadcast, these pins weren't exactly stationary in the afternoon trade winds....  Has Pelz done the research on that?

You might have heard that it-boy Cam Champ is in the field, and Dan Kilbridge had this on one underwhelming poke with the Big Dog:

Standing behind the ninth tee box the anticipation grew as Champ pulled driver out of the bag. He’d already hit a 335-yard 3-wood off the first tee, so this was gonna be good. 

Then Champ snap-hooked it directly into a nasty area way left of the fairway and dropped his driver in frustration. It was the type of shot you see all the time at the local muni but rarely ever on the PGA Tour. Shot Tracker had it at 223 yards. 

It was a letdown for sure and resulted in a double-bogey 7 on an extremely off-brand day for Champ. 

The 23-year-old known for his driver salvaged his round with a dominant putting performance and currently sits T-14 at 2 under. With just a few groups left on course Champ was first in the field with a 3.658 strokes gained putting performance.

That's only a surprise if you weren't watching in the Fall.... the kid can putt.

Now I though I heard something about Cam's round on the broadcast, that he attempted to drive the 299-yard Par-4 and put his tee ball OB.  from there, he seems to have made....par?  If I heard it correctly, isn't that kinda special?  But the lack of coverage has me thinking I misheard it....

Bob & Carol & Ted &....Ariya? - Can someone please explain how this works to me?  One of the feel good stories of 2018 on the LPGA Tour was Pernilla Lindberg's win at The Dinah (sorry kids, it'll always be the Dinah to this old guy)....  

The first caddie change of 2019 might end up being the most interesting of the year. Pernilla Lindberg’s fiancé, Daniel Taylor, will no longer caddie for his bride-to-be, and will instead carry the bag of Ariya Jutanugarn, the no. 1 player in the world. 

It comes from a report by Golf Channel’s Randall Mell, in which Lindberg says, “It’s tough sometimes being a caddie and a player. It’s a lot of time to spend together.” According to the report, Lindberg’s new caddie will be Roy Clarke, who has caddied for multiple LPGA Tour winners. 

The decision seems rooted in the amount of time spent together. Lindberg added:“At the end of the day, you have nothing to talk about it. I can’t ask Daniel, ‘What did you have for dinner last night?’”

OK, so you're not even married yet and you find yourself with nothing to talk about?  If Vegas makes book on this wedding actually happening, I know where my shekels will bet...

The USGA, Still Bad at PR - So, the golf world is watching the beautiful images from Maui, including the first implementation of the most substantial revision of the rules of the game in decades....  Yanno, that project the USGA spent years on and believes will provide the platform on which the game can grow into the future...

So, how do you manage this roll-out?  Naturally, you step on your own story with an announcement that could easily be deferred, and which focuses everyone on your recent cock-ups.  Well played!

Beginning with this year’s championship at Pebble Beach, USGA CEO Mike Davis is

voluntarily stepping away from his longtime lead role in setting up the golf course at U.S. Opens. 

Although none of his setup predecessors – Joe Dey, P.J. Boatwright, David Eger and Tom Meeks – ever publicly professed the love for the job that Davis has, as he leaned back in a chair in his office at USGA headquarters in Far Hills, N.J., a few days before the holiday break, he proclaimed himself “very happy about this.” 

And in case you’re wondering, he’s also quite clear that his decision was not driven by what happened last June at Shinnecock Hills.

Glad they cleared that last bit up, but you'd think they'd want to avoid that inevitable subject....

But since you mentioned Shinny, you'll be relived to know that that was merely a failure to communicate:

Bodenhamer would go on to prepare a detailed behind-the-scenes post-mortem that has provided the USGA a more accurate assessment of what went wrong at Shinnecock, specifically an error in communication and execution along the chain of command. “It wasn’t that there was a judgment to make the course harder on Saturday by not applying water in the morning,” Davis said. “Water was applied on the front nine, where there were no complaints. It was a failure of carrying out the intention of applying enough water on the back nine. That was not the Shinnecock Hills club’s fault. We erred there. The USGA erred.”

We already knew that....  

Now is not the time for a longer treatment of Davis' career, one that initially held such promise.  There's a natural tendency to forget the abject dreariness of those Tom Meeks' set-ups, and Mike's introduction of innovations such as graduated rough was a breath of fresh air.

That said, the organization in recent years seems incapable of dealing with modernity, forever behind the curve on rules changes and the use of technology.  On the threshold issue of distance the organization seems to have spent years understating the effects, and now that they've somewhat changed their tune they seem incapable of exerting actual leadership on the issue....

Here's Shack's coda on the subject from his post:

The move is obviously disappointing news to those who welcomed Davis’s many positive ideas about better showing off a course design or in eliciting different questions beyond who hits the ball the straightest. Presumably the USGA’s shift in philosophy will continue but lurking more than ever is the continued pressure to maintain difficulty at courses overwhelmed by spiking driving distances.

Exactly.  Though, of course, that distance comes with a lower-spinning golf ball, making these guys longer and straighter.  

Rory, Unplugged -  After twenty years of Tiger giving us nada, Rory is a refreshing interview subject.  That said, he sometimes seems to go out of his way to bring the heat.... down on himself:

Let's parse an example, shall we?  He recently committed to maintaining Euro Tour membership, but we all understand that will be accomplished in minimalist fashion, which he explains:

McIlroy, in a sense, is embarking on what might be considered the next phase of his career. A new reality of his own making. The four-time major champion from Northern

Ireland is all but leaving the Old World for the New World, shedding his European roots to concentrate on a life in America and a career with much more emphasis on the PGA Tour. 

The duel tug of heart and ambition outweigh everything else. Easy decision. 

“Easy,” he echoes. “My life’s here [in the U.S.]. I have an American wife. I live in America. Honestly, I enjoy it here more. The way of life is easier. The weather. The convenience.”

OK, not too much damage there... I'd have advised him to avoid saying that he likes it better here, just blame it all on Erica.  But he couldn't let it go at that, could he, and the pile on seems unnecessary:

“It’s so one-sided,” McIlroy pointed out. “Look, you can talk all you want about these bigger events in Europe, but you can go to America and play for more money and more ranking points. I think as well with the world ranking points, everyone out here, all of their contracts with sponsors, it's all about world ranking points. If players are getting paid more and earning more world ranking points, why would you play over there?” 

It sounded harsh, but he was only speaking the truth, and he continued.

Just because it's tru doesn't mean that he needs to be the one saying it....  And, the worst is yet to come:

“The ultimate goal is here,” McIlroy added. “The European Tour is a stepping stone. That's the truth. The European Tour is a stepping stone. That's the way it is. It's tough. I still want to support the European Tour, and I talk about this loyalty thing with Europe. … [But] it's not as though I'm just starting out and jumping ship. I've done my time. I've done everything I feel like I need to do to say OK, I’m going to make my own decisions and do what I want.”

Thud.  But, amusingly, the U.S. keeps losing to what Rory considers a developmental tour....

Also amusing, was the reaction when Rory post a photo of his new kicks:

Shack goes with hospital-friendly, which isn't bad.  Even better, he posts some of the comment thread:

thelext Shuffleboard shoes.
rtmartinaz Paging Nurse Ratched
303michael When you've got a tee time at 9 but you gotta go be a nurse at 2.
new84man @jeffcolburn4 better if they have Velcro.
5m_madden Does @rorymcilroy have bad circulation or diabetes? Those are absolutely terrible.
seth_thomas Where can we get the shoes bag?! Wow. Fire. 🔥
rlab77 Not even an endorsement contract like Rory's could get this pair on my feet. The bag looks top notch though
prettyzach @handcuff11 Nike making footjoys now?
ken212525 They handed those out at local bowling alley last night. Rolled a 98
therealroymcavoy Air Griswold’s? Modeled after the gift from cousin Eddie? #superdope
majortimmy01 Pee wee Herman Shoes!

Hey, rtmatinaz, that Nurse Ratched bit belongs to me.....

Lots of love for what appears to be a bespoke Seamus shoe bag....

Then again, he did have an amusing response to his Captain's new tat....

See ya down the road.