Tuesday, July 23, 2019

Tuesday Tastings

The Biblical rains pounding the roof here at Unplayable Lies World HQ provide a good rhythm for typing... If only I had the foresight to have learned to type.

Portrush Leftovers - Held some stuff back yesterday, so let's have at it... Big-thinker John Feinstein takes on the schedule with this:
In a certain way, I completely agree.... Especially when the PGA took their August events to cold-weather climes such as Kiawah, Atlanta, Quail Hollow and St. Louis....
Golf got one right. 
For all the complaining about the decision to move the PGA Championship from August to May and, in the process, make the Open Championship the year’s last major, the change has worked out perfectly. And will continue to do so in the years to come.  
The reason for the move wasn’t as simple as the PGA just deciding that May would be a better date for its event. As always in sports, money was involved in an important
decision. The PGA Tour and FedEx badly wanted to move its playoffs out of September and away from competing with the NFL for TV viewers. As long as the PGA was the second week in August, that was impossible. 
And so, a deal was worked out: The PGA of America would cede August to the tour, and in return, the tour would move the Players Championship back to March—where it always should have been. 
The tour moved the Players to May in 2007, hoping to create the illusion that there was a major each month, beginning with the Masters in April and ending with the PGA in August. It didn’t work. The weather might have been occasionally cold and rainy in north Florida in March, but that was better than the blistering heat in May. When Tim Finchem was still commissioner, he talked about possibly moving the event back to March.
Well, Nurse Ratched was always big on his illusions....  Not only The Players as the fifth of four majors, but there was also that DJ jet-ski accident....
I ask you this: Is there a better climax in golf than the impending Open champion walking up the 18th fairway with the huge grandstands on either side of the green packed with people standing, screaming and singing? Fred Couples calls it “the best walk in golf,” and he never won the Open. The giant yellow scoreboards are unique, and I always get a little chill when I see the hand-posted sign, which this year read: “Congratulations Shane. See You Next Year at Royal St. George's.” 
The coolest moment, though, comes during the awards ceremony. It’s brief and simple: The head of the R&A says the most eloquent six words there are in the sport: “The Champion Golfer of the Year … ” 
Gets to me every time, regardless of the winner. It’s the perfect annual climax to golf’s four most important events. 
This year. Next year. And, I hope, forever.
You'll have to go elsewhere for a rebuttal to that....  My griping is confined to the long wait for the next significant event.

Max Adler has an anecdote-heavy item on Sunday scenes that didn't make it to your flatscreen, such as this:
PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — Shouts of “C’mon Sh-yane” segued to “Ole” chants at the 16th hole, the long par 3 called Calamity Corner, when Shane Lowry carved a low, long-iron left of the green and watched it peel back to the front edge. With a six-shot lead and 50-foot ravine of wet salad on the right, it was the bloody perfect shot. 
Tommy Fleetwood’s attempt flew twice as high and hardly drifted. You can’t spell Lowry without “low,” and that trajectory is part of the story of how a handsy Irishman with a long and flowing old-school action outlasted an Englishman with a more modern, controlled move in the wet crosswinds off the Irish Sea. 
“Lowry’s rhythm hasn’t wavered once, it’s beautiful,” said David Leadbetter walking in full waterproof gear, doing his best to keep his Sky Sports microphone dry while off air. “Both of these players have such wonderful short games, delicate, and that’s what a lot of it comes down to on a day like today.” 
Not one golfer who teed off in the afternoon would finish their round under par.
What, you thought his given name was monosyllabic?
Lowry on the 4th green on Sunday.
 But this was my fave bit:
Kneeling to avoid the ire of the crowd, you hear from over your shoulder at the seventh, “Ah no, take the feckin’ putter, Shane boy.” Lowry is just a few paces short of the par-5 green in two and holding a wedge, in almost the same exact spot where he failed to make birdie in Saturday’s third round. He lobs it again—unnecessarily, at least one fan would say—but this time cleanly and converts the bird. Off tight links turf and with a major championship on the line, words can’t express how good a putter looked from there. Hugo Boss is the sponsor of every free hat at this Open, and that shot selection certainly was, too.
Pretty much what I was shouting at my TV, especially silly considering I was watching it on tape hours after it happened....

Sean Zak contributes nine bits we didn't know about Sh-yane, though most are things GC/NBC reminded us of repeatedly.  This is about the only surprise:
9. He gets ZERO 2020 Ryder Cup points for his win 
Despite his dominant win this week, Lowry still has a lot of work to do to qualify for the 2020 Ryder Cup team, captained by his good friend Padraig Harrington. The qualification period for the European team begins in two months at the BMW PGA Championship. He’s got his eye on making that squad. Sentimentally, at least, he’s in the right spot.
OK, I'm not worried about his making the squad....  At least not just yet.

Wondering how his peers reacted to the win?  A click will answer that query.  I'll add this nice call-out from the actual Tommy Fleetwood as well:



Nice....

I promised to deal with J.B. Holmes today, and how about a little Henrik as the perfect segue.  Did you catch his epic shank Sunday?
The weather picked up dramatically in the latter half of the final round at Royal Portrush. That left stars scrambling to finish out this 2019 British Open. Henrik Stenson was among the players stifled by Portrush on Sunday, but it was a dead shank he hit late in the round that pushed Stenson over the edge. 
Stenson was three over on his round when he arrived at Portrush’s difficult par-4 17th on Sunday. At three under over all, any hopes he had of winning his second British Open had already begun to vanish. One shot later, they disappeared completely.

Stenson chose iron off the tee at 17 and hit what can only be described as a dead shank, sending his ball soaring behind grandstands running down the right of the hole. Apparently that was too much to handle, because after yelling ‘Fore’ Stenson raised his club in both hands and brought it crashing down on his right knee, snapping it in two.
I thought he handled it pretty well:


OK, maybe not so much, but it was genuine, raw emotion, and we excise that from our game at our own peril.  

JB Holmes birdied the 18th on Saturday, upending the apparent Holmes-Rose Sunday pairing.  At this point it had little relevance to the event's outcome, but your humble blogger was looking for entertainment amidst the inevitable coronation Sunday.  The pairing of Holmes, the Tour's most notorious slowpoke, with Koepka, who plays with urgency, seemed promising...especially in light of the weather forecast.

As you've know, it didn't go well for JB:
PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — After firing 66-68-69, J.B. Holmes was 10 under par through three rounds at the Open Championship, good for second place. Though he faced 
How's your day going, JB?
an uphill battle in the final round, trailing 54-hole leader Shane Lowry by six shots, a bad weather forecast for Sunday gave all the chasers hope that they might be able to make up some ground. 
Holmes teed off in the penultimate group with Brooks Koepka, but it didn’t take long for things to go south. Holmes made a double bogey on the 1st hole, a brutal opening blow. Four more bogeys followed on the front nine, mitigated by just one birdie. Holmes made the turn at five 0ver on the front side. 
Things only got worse on the back. Holmes suffered a triple bogey, three double bogeys, and two additional bogeys for a back-nine 46. What’s worse, his resulting final score of 87 caused Holmes to plummet 64 spots down the leaderboard into T-67 — a loss of approximately $700,000 in prize money. Holmes finished the championship at six over par overall, ahead of only three other players who made the cut.
Boo-friggin'-hoo, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.....

I know, I don't the guy, and he's probably nice to small children and wounded animals, but I still find myself developing a visceral distaste for the man.   And yes, I took great pleasure in his struggles on Sunday, but I also hold out hope that it can be a teachable moment.  Here's what I've noticed about our JB over the years:

  1. he is, bar none, the worst player under pressure I've perhaps ever seen.  I know other guys have had more memorable moments, but every time I've seen JB in contention on a Sunday, that collar seems so tight he's happy just to get oxygen into his lungs.  That would mostly be entertaining, except that:
  2. Always slow, his pace deteriorates to that requiring a sundial in the presence of pressure and/or difficult conditions.  Combine those elements, and the result is that scene on Torrey Pines' 18th hole earlier this year, in which we watched him toss grass and defer a decision for an eternity, thereby freezing his playing partner.  I understand the challenge of swirling winds and always advocate for slack in such circumstances, especially since he needed eagle to force a playoff.  Except that....
  3. The eejit proceeds to lay up....  Got that?  Needing an eagle to win, he lays up, thereby protecting his paycheck but forgoing any reasonable chance to win.  What a great competitor!
So, how did Brooksie handle things?  Pretty well, mostly:
PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — Brooks Koepka knew what he was getting into on Sunday at Royal Portrush. It wasn’t just trying to figure out a way to rally from seven shots back of Open Championship leader Shane Lowry and steal a fifth major title in 10 starts. And Koepka wasn’t just trying to do it in a steady rain and winds blowing 20
miles per hour. There was also the golfer he was going to be paired with in the day’s penultimate twosome.

J.B. Holmes' reputation for slow play precedes him. So does Koepka’s outspokenness about pro golf’s pace-of-play issues. The two were bound to collide on Sunday, and it seemed like they did a few times on the back nine. At one moment off the 12th green, Koepka was spotted talking to a rules official and motioning to his wrist at the spot one would ordinarily be wearing a watch, as if to suggest time was dragging by. 
In another instance, TV cameras caught Koepka looking upset at Holmes' deliberateness on a green.
Hey, those two-footers don't plumb-bob themselves....Think I'm exaggerating?  Get a load of this:
Holmes is an egregiously slow player. Everyone on Tour knows this. The TV coverage knows it. The hundreds of golf watchers tweeting angrily know it. And he’s not some sneaky slow player. It’s conspicuous and excruciating. 
It started from the very first tee on Sunday, where, amazingly, Holmes was not sure what club to hit. He hit second after Koepka, and 58 seconds elapsed from the moment the first tee announcer finished belting his name and his iron striking the ball. Koepka took 23 seconds. NBC announcer Paul Azinger, who has a fondness for Holmes going back to their 2008 Ryder Cup win, added, “He had to have known what club he was going to hit for 23 hours!” But Holmes dragged it out before a double cross yank sailed way left out of bounds. Hitting two off the first tee was certainly not going to speed up play, but Holmes added to the duration by then changing clubs for the second tee shot.
Seriously, he's supposed to be a professional.... 

But, as Koepka explains, it's the willful refusal to at least try to speed up that rankles:
“I just always play … I’m ready to go most of the time,” Koepka said. “That’s what I don’t understand when it’s your turn to hit, your glove is not on, then you start thinking about it, that’s where the problem lies. It’s not that he takes that long. He doesn’t do anything until his turn. That’s the frustrating part. But he’s not the only one that does it out here.”
Therein lies the rub...  After Torrey, JB was called out and basically told everyone to go eff themselves.   It's the equivalent of a schoolyard taunt, "make me."  I can't make him and the Tour is obviously unwilling to, but there's no reason we have to pretend that he's a serious professional golfer....  If golf ever warrants an obituary, JB might just be the cause.

Tiger, Explained - Shack tells us all to chill:
Step back people. This is not complicated. But the simplicity of it all may be hard for some to hear. 
Tiger Woods is a part-time golfer who has other priorities in life and in his career. You would too if you were 43, owned a jet, had children you adore, a fifth green jacket in the closet and a mega-yacht.
What I would do seems irrelevant, no?   I've never been Tiger Woods, and Tiger was bred and trained for this purpose, and pretty much this purpose alone.  So I do think it's complicated....

For instance, last year was all about Tiger's joy at being back in the mix and competing with the young studs.  He's not the first golfer to juggle family and other obligations, but this isn't the Tiger we knew:
“I just want some time off just to get away from it,” he said, looking surprisingly fresh
but sounding oddly weary given just three starts since Augusta. 
“I had a long trip to Thailand and then trying to get ready for this event, to play this event, it’s been a lot of travel, a lot of time in the air, a lot of moving around and different hotels and everything.” 
Then came the most genuine moment of his post-round gathering.
“I just want to go home.”
Here's the thing...  The powers that be gave him a gift, a condensed three-month season (from the Masters in April through the Open in July).  He showed up at at least two of those majors completely unprepared, and that cuts him some slack on Pebble.  Is it too much to expect that he'd be serious golfer for those three months?

But want some cognitive dissonance?  First this from Shack, who really should know better:
At least there was some good news for the PGA Tour: Woods sounds excited to make a playoff run and arrive at East Lake with a chance to win the FedEx Cup.
Geoff, are you even listening to yourself?  Don't worry about those silly majors, we've got the exciting playoffs to grind through.  I get that Atlanta will be warm, but this is madness...

Then this news:
A return of a skins game format that will feature Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Jason Day and Hideki Matsuyama will take place on Oct. 21 at Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club in Japan, a source tells ESPN. 
The one-day competition, which will offer lucrative prize money, will take place a few days prior to the start of the Zozo Championship, a new PGA Tour event being played outside of Tokyo where Woods will also compete.
Can't you find a spot for JB in this?  When I ignore the broadcast of this event, I'd feel much better if my contempt were spread over all the appropriate targets.

Cheap Shots -  In which your humble blogger deftly parries off current headlines:





see you tomorrow, kids.
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