Thanks for understanding my day off yesterday....I'd like to tell you that I'm recharged, but 45 holes of golf in the span of about thirty hours has me knackered.... Let's see if you notice.
Portrush Leftovers - I've been reliably informed that the PGA Tour is in Memphis. I'm unclear on how to avoid discussing it in Monday's post, but there's nothing you could do that would make me acknowledge it today....
The Golf.com gang offers some ruminations on their week on the Antrim coast, well worth your time. It's a perfect storm for the traveling writers, golf in the morning followed by banging out your deadline article, followed by evening golf:
The very best version of the gameThere’s one golf course that occupies the coastline between venerated Northern Irish clubs Portstewart and Royal Portrush: Ballyreagh Golf Course. That’s where colleagues Bamberger, Shipnuck, Kerr-Dineen (Marksbury didn’t bring her clubs!) and I foundourselves late Thursday night, scrambling for a dusky few holes. But as we pulled into the near-empty parking lot at 9:20 p.m. we realized we were in for a real treat.
There are two keys to Ballyreagh: property and ethos. The first comes out of sheer luck, I guess. Craggy coastline is rather more abundant in the north of Ireland than where I’m from, but this is still a prize piece. But the ethos of Ballyreagh is what makes the place. There are two sides to the property, a pitch-and-putt and the “big course,” the latter a nine-hole par-3. Greens fees never run more then eight pounds (10 bucks), and less for juniors. There’s a practice putting green and a chipping green, there are *actual* cheap deals on used equipment and clothing in the pro shop, and there’s nary a mention of dress code on the entire property. The greens roll a strong 6 and the views are a strong 10.
The night we escaped out there, we were hardly alone. Three other groups played on in front of us, and another behind us. Three kids wheeled their pull-carts down the road on the way home. Two dog-walkers made their own fair use of the grounds. Sunset-walkers strolled the cliffside trail just below us. We set out with the goal of playing two or three holes; we ended up playing all nine, unable to resist the charm of No. 6, which played directly down at the water, or No. 7, which played directly alongside it, or No. 9, which carried a ravine, a dramatic conclusion for any golfer.
File under, "When in Rome."
I don't know if Brian Wacker writes his own headers, but this is absolutely a classic of the genre:
Rory McIlroy says he has to reassess the way he reassessed his approach to majors in 2019
Maybe, at this point, a kickaround?
Though I think you'll agree this is needlessly hurtful:
McIlroy ranked 20th in World Ranking points earned in the majors in 2019, behind, among others, Chez Reavie, Matt Wallace and Patrick Cantlay, all of whom have a combined zero major wins between them.
Cantlay is a stud waiting to break out, but when you can't keep up with Chez Reavie....
Alan Shipnuck fielded some Open-themed questions in his weekly mailbag feature:
Why do you hate David Duval??? -Daniel (@68shooter)
I don’t! I’ve argued in print he should be in the Hall of Fame, because his dominant five-year run was far more impressive than anything many inductees ever did. I think he’s excellent on the Golf Channel. By all accounts Duval is a dedicated family man. None of this is personal…but someone had to say it. (And after I did I had numerous reporters, three caddies, one American Ryder Cupper and another player in the top 50 of the World Ranking tell me they agree but wouldn’t say so publicly.)
The fact is, Duval plays only a few tournaments a year – his game, mind and body simply aren’t ready for the rigors of the Open. In 2016 he went 82-WD. In 2018 he opened with an 80 and withdrew again. We know what happened this year. This can’t be fun for Duval. It’s not fun for the fans. Wouldn’t the tournament be better served opening up that spot to a full-time touring pro who could potentially make a run at the Claret Jug, like this year’s first alternate, Martin Kaymer?
Ya think? For the life of me, I don't know why guys like Duval do this to themselves... Just because you can play, doesn't mean you should. But the WD's are all on Duval, as he's showing no respect for his playing partners.
But the far greater scorn is due the R&A. It seems to me that they and the PGA of America try to copy the traditions of The Masters (the PGA even has a Champions Dinner), as if that will garner them the same TV ratings. But, as Alan nails, it wastes precious spots in the field... Luckily, we were spared the sight of John Daly, who threw his hissy fit before arrival.
Does Portrush get another Open? -@SteveThomsonMN
Oh, hell yes, and soon. It is destined to be a regular part of the rota. No one really loves Royal St. Georges or Royal Lytham, so we can phase out one or both to make room. In fact, my dream rota would be Old Course, Portrush, Turnberry, Muirfield, and Birkdale. Every 10 years we can mix in Carnoustie and Portmarnock for variety.
Can they go to the RoI? They're quite obviously not going back to Turnberry anytime soon... I would think Lytham and Hoylake to be the most vulnerable, but since Carnoustie is the toughest test (though Portrush is in that discussion), I'd think it's spot is secure.
Did Brooks’s pace of play put J.B. off his game? -@mocycling
Well, Holmes had hardly missed a fairway over the first three rounds and, statistically, that couldn’t last. And he’s shown before he’s capable of a spectacular crack-up under pressure: at the 2017 Players he started Sunday tied for first and shot a ghastly 84. But no doubt Koepka’s very public posturing had an effect on Holmes, and I’m totally okay with that. It’s increasingly clear that the only way things are going to change is by the players policing each other. And there is zero doubt who is now the new sheriff on Tour.
Yanno, this is a great Q&A. First time through, I thought it an amusing trifle.... But then as I thought more about it, it's got the ring of truth to it. JB notoriously wilts under pressure, so why shouldn't he do so under this pressure of a different kind. So Brooksie, you have my thanks for taking one for the team.
Why why why didn’t the R&A hand out a bad time penalty for J.B. Slow? -@Babs2121
In this scenario I’m actually a little sympathetic to the tweedy blokes at the R&A. They only run one tournament a year – why do they have to create a huge controversy by being the only organization to hand out slow play penalties? This problem belongs to the PGA Tour and European Tour – they run professional golf week-in-and-week-out and control the livelihoods of the players. The stewards of the tours could change the way the game is played if only they had the balls to do it. It’s not fair to lay the responsibility on the governing bodies who only have one flagship tournament each year.
I think Alan fanned on this one, which can be proven with a two-word rebuttal: Tianlang Guan. he was the 14-year old amateur slapped with a slow-play penalty at The Masters a few years ago. The other point that should be made, is who do you think are the rules officials?
As we've discussed many times, we simply do not have a regimen to monitor and penalize slow play. Given that we capture so many innocents in our attempts to enforce the regimen, better to just Name and Shame.
Bubble Boys - The Golf Digest gearheads do a useful deep dive on equipment testing, it's just really unfortunate that they include this howler in their lede:
What a mess.
After connecting with numerous individuals with knowledge of the matter—all speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the issue—it is clear that multiple drivers failed a pre-tournament test for springlike effect at last week’s OpenChampionship. It’s been confirmed that at least three major manufacturers—Callaway, Ping and TaylorMade—had at least one driver fail the test. Golf Digest also has learned that some 15 drivers failed a similar pre-tournament test at the Diamond Cup event on the Japan Golf Tour in May. All of this surfaces two simultaneously simple yet complex questions: How big of a problem is this, and what to do about it?
The scope of the issue regarding conforming/nonconforming drivers is debatable, but it is not a reach to suggest that it is enough to warrant concern. Fifteen drivers at a Japan Golf Tour event is a lot. Three or more drivers out of 30 tested at Royal Portrush is a lot, too. But before we go further, it’s important to point out that none of these drivers were used in the tournaments where they were found to be over the allowable limit for springlike effect. No one has knowingly, or willingly, used non-conforming equipment.
Alas, the bigger mess might be your tenuous relationship with logic.... Here's Shack on the subject:
As I noted for Golfweek, Xander Schauffele going public with his failed driver test at The Open, and then stirring up a debate about hot drivers, has kept the incident in the news and led to some interesting comments from top players.Jason Munz reports on player thoughts as they tee it up in Memphis this week, and while some inexplicably display life in the bubble by praising Schauffele for taking on the R&A—even after being caught playing an illegal club that was used in competition since January—there are some who don’t take this quite so lightly.
We have no shortage of examples of said bubble, but do you the import. We don't know when Xander's driver was last tested (if, at all), but doesn't it seem quite obvious that the man played professional events with a non-conforming driver? You'd think he'd feel a little sheepish, no?
They make two important points, the first being that no is intentionally cheating... The second is perhaps the more important, which would likely account for the lack of cheating:
The benefit of a driver slightly over the limits of conformance, most experts we spoke to for this story agree, is minimal at best. A good rule of thumb is 10 microseconds (which would be highly unlikely any driver would be over the limit by) might equal one yard. That would mean one microsecond (the absolute difference between passing and failing the CT test) might equal the diameter of two golf balls.
I figured as much, yet it'll leave you puzzled for sure:
A little background is needed. First, the test in question is one the USGA developed to measure for springlike effect by using a measurement of characteristic time (CT). The allowable limit is 239 microseconds—this is the amount of time the clubface remains in contact with a small steel ball swung from a pendulum apparatus at the moment of impact. A tolerance of 18 microseconds is also added, so although the limit is 239, any driver measuring 257 microseconds or less passes the test. Think of a 65 mile-per-hour speed limit, but you know you won’t get pulled over unless you’re doing more than 75, and you get the idea. The test is not limited to the center of the face, but several points on the face where impact might occur.
So why a tolerance zone at all? There is inherent variability in the machines equipment manufacturers use to check their players' drivers and the machine the USGA and R&A uses to test drivers at tour events. When the USGA established the CT test, the tolerance zone was set to accommodate differences in machines, drivers and even testers' inconsistencies—with the belief the tolerance zone was well above what the actual variability was.
As manufacturing has gotten better and manufacturing tolerances tighter, clubs are being designed to go deeper into the tolerance zone—raising the possibility of a club (or clubs) potentially going over the limit. To be fair, manufacturers persistently test all their drivers they send to tour pros, including “tour spicy” drivers that are under the limit, but perhaps only by a few microseconds. Perfectly legal, but perhaps a recipe for danger.
So, there's no measurable benefit to pushing the limits, yet push they do right up to the edge of the tolerance.... What could go wrong?
Nothing in this article will make you feel any better about the process, including the fact that they can't be bothered tracking the serial numbers of drivers that have failed their testing... It's a mess of their own creation, for sure, but our governing bodies continue to inspire a profound lack of confidence.
Justin Thomas wants to know why you're looking at him:
“I think that’s on the manufacturers to make sure that (the clubs) are tested and that they are conforming,” he said. “Because that’s not fair to the rest of the field if guys are using some and some aren’t. We don’t have those tests just sitting in our living room (where) we can do them when we get home.”
Of course, Justin has a unique take on his rights and responsibilities. For instance, he thinks he has a right to play quickly, before his playing partner can mark his ball, if such a backstop gives him an advantage. Where do the rest of us go to find that world that's all rights, no responsibilities?
But it's deep thinker Bryson DeChambeau who's the poster child for a world without rules... he wants the drivers of the top five in every tournament tested after the fact but, wait for it, none of those pesky ramifications:
“If you did play a driver that was illegal, you take some FedEx Cup points away,” said DeChambeau, who has five Tour wins. “So you make your money and win, that’s great, but you lose half the points you made. It’s not like you should have the trophy taken away. That’s one way to deal with it. You putted well, you chipped well. But I think there needs to be some repercussions from using something that’s not under the conformance rules. If they want to challenge the ruling, they can go do some tests to see if it was truly over.”
You mean those FedEx Cup points that you'd lose in the reset anyway? Yanno, you really can't make this stuff up....
I will note that at Fairview we've had a run of players switching to the very same Epic Flash driver used by the X-man.... Players, invariably of the... well, how shall we put it, highly experienced nature. Notwithstanding this concerning trend, our head professional strangely declined my suggestion of mandatory testing before Thursday Night League. Go figure.
Ugh! - This is thoroughly dog-bites-man, but the shear repetition of selling Ryder Cups to the highest bidder is getting so very tedious.... Here's the latest:
Adare Manor in Limerick will be officially confirmed as the venue for the Ryder Cup in2026 on Thursday morning.
The PGA European Tour has decided that the golf resort owned by financier JP McManus will host the blue riband event, some 20 years after the event was held for the first time in Ireland, at the K Club in 2006.
The decision is contingent on the Government signing a memorandum with the PGA European Tour as well as a licensing and marketing agreement. It has also agreed to make funding available to support the biennial event, which involves matchplay between the top golfers from Europe and the United States.
This news breaks just as we've seen the best that Irish golf has to offer.... I guess the K Club wasn't dreary enough for these folks.
More Alan? - Why not, especially as he's naming names:
Rory McIlroy, a tragic hero? There seems no progress in his performances when it matters the most. -@Dominique_Franz
The 79-65 was the perfect summation of McIlroy’s last five years: maddening and thrilling in equal measure. We know his wedge game can be sloppy and his putting inconsistent, but what happened on Thursday at Portrush was metaphysical. It helps explain why Rory often seems overwhelmed at the Masters, the tournament he wants the most. We all love Rory because he’s real and honest. We’re dazzled by his physical gifts. But what happened at Portrush was a window into his soul. Tragic hero is a very good way to think about Rory.
Hero? I try to stay away from words like that as relates to our little game, but those two days in Portrush were the perfect synechdoche of Rory's years in the wilderness.
Rickie has been labeled the best player to not have a major. Is Tommy Fleetwood moving into that category? -@DJ_Lightz
I could watch Tommy Lad hit the ball all day long. Some of the shots he played through the wind on Sunday were awe-inspiring. But his putting let him down. Again. As good as Fleetwood is it’s criminal that a year and a half has gone by since his last win. He’s such a kind, gentle soul – can he access the hardass flintiness that most of the game’s greats possess? Or maybe all he has to do is free up his putter on Sundays and he can remain a sweetheart with a bunch of big, shiny trophies on his mantle. (I think we’d all prefer the latter.) To your question, Fleetwood has certainly had the requisite near-misses in the major championships required to be the BPNTHWAM. But I think he needs to prove he can win more consistently before we worry about his major haul. Right now, I think Kuchar carries the dreaded title of BPNTHWAM.
No way, Jose! Tommy Lad is a nice little player, but what has the man ever won? Even Kooch is more of a Top-ten machine than a consistent winner, but Rickie is Da' Man in this ignominious category, if only because of the hype.
Tiger looked dejected, very slow through the ball and creaky old. Enough with the Masters hangover talk, there must be more going on here. -@LabLoverDE
I think there was a legit emotional hangover after the Masters, and it clearly spilled into the PGA Championship. At the two Opens it was more about Tiger’s physical limitations. He pushed really, really hard last year, trying to build a new swing and reinvent himself as a golfer. Then he maxed out again leading to the Masters and throughout that week, when he climbed the tallest mountain imaginable. It’s pretty clear now that Tiger pushed himself to the breaking point. I’d love to see him just shut it down for six months and then show up at Torrey next year and build toward the Masters again. He only has a finite number of swings left – I hope he uses them wisely.
The breaking point? By my count, he's played twelve rounds of golf since April.... My sense is that he doesn't seem to care all that much after his crowning achievement at Augusta. That doesn't make him a bad person, but it leaves his fans confused.
Has J.B. taken over the top spot of golf twitter’s favorite villain? (Or at least until the next Jason Day WD…) -@WallDwarf
It think Holmes solidified that honorific with his tedious layup at Torrey. It’s really a shame because J.B. has a moving personal story and should be easy to root for, but the incredibly selfish way he plays the game has destroyed any and all goodwill. Hopefully he takes to heart Brooks’, uh, encouragement. Kevin Na has learned to play faster and it’s no coincidence he’s won twice since. So maybe there’s hope for us all.
Kevin Na is the perfect comparison... he had his well-documented issues, more than just at that famous Players, but he always conveyed the sense that he was aware of and cared about the effect on other players. J.B.'s attitude is very much of the "You can't make me" variety, and I can only hope he's hearing it from the other players.
Regarding Koepka’s comment that he doesn’t practice before regular Tour events…Isn’t it a bit insulting to fellow pros and the Tour brass that are trying to promote every event? What does it say about those events? Or him? -Vaidya (@vs2k2)
There is a certain lack of professionalism there. I think about Joe DiMaggio being asked once why he played his heart out in every game and he said, to paraphrase, because there might be a boy in the stands watching me for the first time. If Brooks is going to turn up at a Tour event you’d like him to put in a little effort to play well, since fans have paid good money to be there, thousands of volunteers have given their time and various corporations have invested a lot to put on the event. But Koepka has made the correct calculation that majors will define his legacy and that’s where he can scoop up the long money and World Ranking points. So, why sweat the small stuff? He’s certainly a lot fresher physically and mentally this way. But his milquetoast performances in everyday events just throws into sharp relief Tiger Woods’ grind and pride as he fought so hard to win every single time he teed it up.
Yeah, it's a gaffe in the Kinseyesque ilk, accidentally speaking the truth. But why should Brooks treat sponsor with any more respect than they get from the suits in Ponte Vedra Beach? Once the ink is dry on the contract, you're on your own...
Looks like internal O.B. > rough to control the bombers. -@nolandad
Yeah, sure, if you line any hole with O.B. stakes it becomes a lot tougher and forces players to be more defensive. That doesn’t make it right, or pleasing. My only critique of Portrush is that it needs to lose the O.B. down the left side of No. 1and 18. Neither is necessary on this great links. (The out-of-bounds behind 5 green makes a little sense since there’s no way play a ball from the steep cliffs beyond the white line.)
I agree, although this seems more a one-off.... But stay tuned, because the set-up issues aren't getting any easier.
I saw Jaime Diaz say this was one of the great major seasons of all time. I don’t get that. Yes people liked Tiger winning, but Brooks made the PGA boring for 65 holes, and Woodland and Lowry are pretty underwhelming winners. How would you rank this year? -Jeff (@War_Eagle1988)
Coming up with an actual ranking would require more thinking than I’m prepared in this jet-lagged state but my feelings are much closer to Jaime’s than yours. This year’s Masters was utterly epic and will be talked about as long as golf is played. The PGA Championship featured the number 1 and 2 players in the World Ranking slugging it out on a big, brawny golf course…what more could you want? The U.S. Open had a lot of glittery names on the leaderboard, Koepka made a stirring run at another historic win and Woodland hit maybe the two most memorable shots of the year to pull out the win on an iconic course. The Open Championship was imbued by so much emotion. If Sunday lacked a certain dramatic tension that’s only because the day before Lowry produced the round of the year. He was the right champion at the right time. All in all, I think it was a helluva year.
I find myself closer to War_Eagle on this one... It's a tough one, because the pleasures this year were more of the emotional variety ( see, Woods, Tiger and Lowry, Shane) than the golf variety.
I wasn't going to blog this item, but this guy ranked all forty majors from the last decade, citing this as the best:
AND THE MAJOR OF THE DECADE IS…
1 — 2019 Masters: To quote Dan Hicks, and his memorable call from Torrey Pines in 2008, expect anything different? You have the greatest (or second-greatest) player ever capping off his unfathomable comeback by winning his fifth green jacket at the age of 43. You have roars, tears, awe. You have hugs with his kids. Case closed.
The minor issue I have is that the quality of play was pretty dreadful down the stretch... I get the historical significance, for sure, it wasn't aesthetically pleasing.
How about a topical question on which to exit?
Given the recent Apollo 11 hoopla, who is golf’s Michael Collins? – Brian (@HailFlutie)
It’s gotta be Gary Player. He was in the orbit of the stars but so often overlooked.
Cute, though Player really wasn't underappreciated. I mean, the Big Three and all....
Have a great weekend.
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