Thursday Threads

Off to Snowbasin with a couple of FOGs this morning, so time is of the essence.....

Our Hero's Moment of Fame - I've introduced you to David Pastore previously, the official struggling tour professional of Unplayable Lies.  David had previously qualified for Torrey Pines, and now had an epic Monday worthy of Golf Digest's attention:

But like all aspiring tour pros looking for a shot on the PGA Tour, Pastore keeps coming back for more. Last week at TPC Dorado Beach he fired an even-par 71, tying for 40th in the Monday qualifier for the Puerto Rico Open. This week, he was back at it again, looking to get in the Honda Classic field via the Monday qualifier at Banyan Cay. 

Pastore shot a six-under 66, a score you’d think would be enough to earn one of the four spots at PGA National. But because Erik Compton and Drew Nesbitt edged him by one stroke, Pastore found himself in a 7-for-2 playoff that began on Tuesday morning.

On the first playoff hole, Pastore appeared to lock up one of the two remaining spots when he hit his second shot on the par-5 10th to three feet. In the threesome ahead, one player made birdie while the other two made bogeys. That meant Pastore’s kick-in eagle would earn him one of the remaining spots no matter what. Until …

What. A. Dagger. "I was just shocked, in disbelief that I missed the putt," Pastore told Golf Digest over the phone on Tuesday night. "It was a tap-in basically, so when I missed it and it lipped out, I basically had the same length putt [for birdie], and when I went to go tap it in like I normally would, again I was just kind of shocked."

All of this is captured in embedded videos at the link.

It has a happy ending:

He'll tee off on the 10th hole at PGA National on Thursday at 1:05 p.m. ET alongside Australia's Cameron Davis and Canada's Roger Sloan.

No word as to whether brother Paul will be on the bag.  David has had enough golf heartache for one lifetime, so the Fairview membership will be holding its collective breath this week... hopefully into the weekend.

Golden Slumbers -  R&A Majordomo Martin Slumbers was available to the press, and only had to walk back some of that which he said.

In somewhat chronological order, the big guy was out among the people in conjunction with this announcement:

THE 151ST OPEN TO BE PLAYED AT ROYAL LIVERPOOL IN 2022 

26 February 2019, St Andrews, Scotland: The 151st Open will be played at Royal Liverpool (Hoylake) from 10-17 July 2022. 

The occasion will mark the 13th time that golf’s original championship has been played over the famous links where many of the greatest names in the sport have lifted the iconic Claret Jug. 

The Open was last played at Hoylake in 2014 when Rory McIlroy famously completed a wire-to-wire victory by two strokes over Rickie Fowler and Sergio Garcia to become the third golfer from Northern Ireland, after Fred Daly (Hoylake,1947) and Darren Clarke (Royal St George’s, 2011), to win the Championship.

Meh.  Which only serves to remind of the approaching five-year anniversary of Rory's last major.....  and yes, I know it was a month after that July 2014 Open.

Perhaps the most interesting side note to this, is this speculation from our Shack as to the status of another iconic Open venue:

It’s hard not to see a return to Royal Liverpool in 2022 as a sign that Royal Lytham and St Anne’s days in the rota are numbered given space issues and a lack of length. Hoylake last hosted in 2014 while Lytham last welcomed the world’s best in 2012. 

With The Open at St. Andrews in 2021 there was only a chance of back-to-back playings in Scotland, albeit it a slim one, meaning Trump Turnberry remains waiting for its first Open since 2009 and first R&A event since 2012’s Senior Open.

That 2012 Open didn't exactly excite the masses, featuring an epic Adam Scott collapse and an accidental champion in Ernie Els.  But Lytham's ties to Bobby Jones, Bobby Locke, Peter Thompson and, of course, Seve, render it profoundly sad should they not return.

It's 2019, so all this rota-watching is fueled by La Resistance, the hope that a certain Ayrshire resort owned by Orange Man is not awarded an Open.  Mr. Slumbers, a political beast for sure, is keeping his options open:

"We have 10 courses that we look to stage the Open Championship on, of which Turnberry is one of them," Slumbers said. 

Turnberry went 15 years in between its two most recent Opens (1994 and 2009), and now looks to be facing a similar wait to get the tournament again. But the other Open venues have not faced similar gaps: including this year's return to Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland, each of the other nine host courses will have held at least one Open between 2011 and 2019. Royal St. George's, which has gone the longest since its last Open (2011) outside of Turnberry, will host again in 2020. 

But with the R&A expected to choose a Scottish host course for 2023, Slumbers reiterated that Turnberry is still a possibility moving forward.

I had assumed that Muirfield would be in line for that one, have dutifully changed their membership policies.  But if they return to England in '24, then Turnberry in July 2025 would safely put them past the conclusion of his second term....  Don't panic, I'm just kidding.

But then Martin said something strange:

"Turnberry will be in consideration for 2023, but it's not a rota," Slumbers said. "We look at all the issues in the round, but Turnberry remains as one of the 10 courses where we could stage the Open Championship."

 Isn't it?

Is he hanging his hat on the fact that it's not a fixed order?  Because if it were fixed, then Orange Man would be next up?  If it looks like a rota and quacks like a rota, I'm gonna insist on calling it same.

But our Martin is not finished, sticking his nose where it doesn't belong:

“Like every business, and I think about The Open as a business, we have a lack of certainty about the rules,” Slumbers said. “The law which we are operating under

post‑March 29 has caused us significant concern. In hindsight, would I be wanting to do Portrush in the year that we are potentially leaving the European Union without a deal? 

No. We as a management team have spent a lot of time looking at contingencies.” 

A no-deal Brexit could potentially see the return of a hard border on the island of Ireland, something Slumbers could do without. 

“The future of the border is our number one concern. We’ve got over 2,000 containers to get across the Irish Sea. 

“The problem is we don’t know whether to reschedule to bring all our containers in through Dublin, whether to move them through Belfast, whether to ship them out of the UK now. That’s the biggest concern, and there are other aspects that make Brexit potentially very complex.”

Oh, cry me a friggin' river..... Can you imagine the disaster if some of that R&A signage got held in port?  Of course this is total bollocks, given that the event is in Northern Ireland, which remains part of the UK come hell or high water...

It so happens that talking down one's marquee event isn't good for business, so here comes the inevitable walkback:

"There is no doubt in my mind that it is going be an historic occasion," said Slumbers of the 18-21 July event. 

"We are determined to deliver an outstanding Championship at Royal Portrush and stage the biggest ever sporting event ever to be held on the island of Ireland. 

"It is a privilege to be bringing The Open back to Royal Portrush for the first time since 1951 and we are all looking forward to it very much. 

"We are working with our partners and the local agencies in Northern Ireland to stage a fantastic Championship of which everyone will be proud."

Can't anybody here play this game?

The Kindness of Others - With the clock ticking, I'm going to milk Alan Shipnuck's mailbag in order to provide y'all some low-impact content:

How many more majors does DJ need to get the underachiever tag off of him? Right now, he has DLIII’s career. #AskAlan -@AmolYajnik

I'm gonna say, when he stops underachieving.... See how easy this is?

Dustin is such a tantalizing talent that however many majors he wins it will never be

enough. But clearly his current haul of one is absurdly low, especially given his many, many opportunities over the last decade. Two is not enough; there are plenty of very-good-but-not-great players who won two major championships (Daly, Janzen, O’Meara, Fuzzy, Andy North, etc.). Three majors is more rarified air, but Johnson has at least as much game as Padraig or Spieth or Koepka, though DJ clearly hasn’t figured out the winning the formula like this accomplished trio. The contemporary players with four majors is a short, macho list: Raymundo, Ernie, Rory. Five is getting into all-time legend status: Seve, Lord Byron, Phil, Peter Thomson. So, taking all of this into account, it will be a damn shame if Dustin doesn’t get to at least three majors. Four feels about right, but five might be a bridge too far.

See how much easier mine was?  Of course, Shippy gets paid by the word....

Some fun stuff on Rors:

#AskAlan Why do you think Rory is not winning as much as DJ? -Col. Mohan Sharma (@mls01) 

The answer was on graphic display in Mexico. When they were paired together for the final round Rory was consistently bombing it past Dustin, and by considerable yardage. But Johnson was vastly superior at everything else: more efficient course management, more accurate wedges, much better putting. McIlroy is playing at a very high level – he leads the Tour in total strokes gained – but when a tournament is on the line his scoring touch seems to vanish. It’s hard not to conclude that at this point the problem is entirely mental, given how sharp his game is otherwise.

Rory's wedge game and putting remain far below Tour standards, and he seems unable or unwilling to rectify that.  But now it gets oh so interesting:

Was Rory cheating when he told the official he would play away from the fairway to try and get relief and then did a different shot when denied? #AskAlan -@Whitwam 

No, he was being a Tour pro. A maxim among these guys is that the rules can help you as often as they hurt you, and pro golfers habitually push the rules right up to the breaking point. No harm in Rory exploring every angle and every possible interpretation.

Oh Alan, we've must get you away from the Kool-Aid.

The simple answer here is yes, it's cheating to tell a rules official that you'll play a shot in a manner one never would, and bless the soul of that rules official who failed to buy.  Add in a dollop of irony, as Rory also whined like his bête noire Patrick Reed, essentially telling the rules official, "I guess you need to be named Jordan Speith DJ".

Remember a couple of days ago when I cited the Best. Question. Ever?  OK, I might have been premature there:

Tiger Woods, unusually, ducked the media after the 3rd/4th rounds in Mexico, assumed to be due to frustration over his putting. But with the big prostitution scandal in Jupiter, should we be worried? -Mark (@mocycling)

Take a minute if you need it.... I'll wait.

It was telling how many folks immediately went there with Tiger – his sex scandal was a decade ago but clearly still resonates. I’m assuming that if he, or any pro golfers, were mixed up in that sordid business the news would have already leaked, so hopefully the golf world is in the clear (beyond Jessica Korda’s boyfriend). Anyway, no doubt Tiger hates poa annua greens; it’s one of the reasons that a long time ago he cut back on his West Coast schedule. But throughout his long career he has always spoken after his rounds, in good times and bad. There are are more nefarious things at work here, namely his deal with GOLFTV to provide “content.” In Mexico it was obviously calculated for Tiger to snub all the hard-working scribes and speak only to his employers. Throw in Rory’s recent deal with Golf Channel and the monetizing of players’ musings is an ominous trend. When you cut out real reporters in favor of sycophantic leg-humpers on the same payroll, fans are only going to get bland, sterilized b.s.

Real reporters?  Oh Alan, you ignorant slut....  The media has spent the last three years beclowning itself on the bigger stage of politics, but sports journalism has always been compromised by its need for access.  It almost makes me want to tell you to learn to code....Though I do mostly like your work.

#AskAlan What is the over/under on Spieth wins this year, 1? -@eugesounds 

Sounds about right, and Jordan is so woebegone right now that only the under makes sense. But I can’t quit him yet. I still believe that at some point this year Spieth will find a magic elixir, and when he gets hot he tends to turn molten. Jordan is so confounding he’ll probably put it all together the week of a major.

He is confounding, though lately it all runs in one direction..... 

This is interesting given the one above:

Vijay never lived down his alleged rules infraction many decades ago. Now we have a Sergio meltdown, Kooch fubar, DeChambeau apologizing for getting caught, LPGA ball- collision scandal and it seems all is quickly forgiven. Has the age of honor and integrity disappeared for good? -@JoelBShaw 

Well, altering your scorecard by one shot so you make the cut on the number – as Vijay did – is pretty much golf’s original sin. It compromises the very sanctity of the competition. All of the controversies you mention here, while ranging from daft to embarrassing, do not meet that threshold. And, yes, the culture now moves on at warp speed, but misdeeds are also exposed to far more people. Clearly you haven’t forgiven/forgotten about what Kuchar and Sergio did, nor have many/most golf fans. I think golf still has a strong moral code, and the backlash to the incidents you cite proves that there remains strong policing of the game’s honor.

I agree with his assessment of original sin, but how does one move on when the sinner displays no contrition?  But apparently golf's moral code makes allowances for lying to rules officials, so I have to wonder if Alan might want to revisit his answer above.

Catch you tomorrow?  Unless, you know, powder....