Monday, August 5, 2019

Weekend Wrap

And quite the weekend it was....Not for me, alas, as my inevitable regression is well under way.  But it well worth it to get out there Friday morning, as I had the pleasure of witnessing the great Bobby D. shoot his age for the first time.  First of what will likely be many times...  And I, for one, don't think that the non-conforming driver diminishes the accomplishment in the slightest...

Shall we get to the business at hand?

The Poston Massacre - A rain-out after twelve holes of our Mixed Member-member left us watching the conclusion of this event at Fairview's Bar 1904:
Who won: J.T. Poston (eight-under 62, 22 under overall) 
How it happened: Byeong Hun An held the 54-hole lead at the Wyndham
Championship and was three clear of J.T. Poston, but Poston made an eagle and was five under on the front nine as he vaulted up the leaderboard. An turned in three under and was tied with Poston, who was two pairings ahead. Locked at 21 under with a few holes to play, Poston birdied the par-5 15th to get to 22 under and take the lead and made pars the rest of the way, signing for an eight-under 62. An fell two off the pace with a bogey on 15, but he rebounded by making a 15-footer for birdie on 16. Needing to birdie the 18th to force a playoff, An’s drive went well left but he got relief from a scoreboard (a temporary immovable object), wedged on and then missed his birdie try from 58 feet. An bogeyed the last and Webb Simpson made birdie to leap ahead and take second place alone at 21 under. An (20 under) was third.
Why it matters: It’s the first PGA Tour victory for the 26-year-old Poston, which came in his 51st career start and in his home state in front of several family and friends. He’s now got a two-year PGA Tour exemption and will make his Masters and PGA Championship debuts next season.
The only reason that it mattered is that Ed Pavelle, sitting to my left at the bar, has Poston on his fantasy roster.  After being saddled with your humble blogger as his partner on Saturday, Ed very much deserved some better luck.

This week on the calendar promises all sorts of fireworks, from bubble boys fighting for tee times the following week, as well as those trying to claw their way into the Wyndham Rewards mess 'o cash.  As for the latter, well there wasn't a whole lot of drama there:
Brooks Koepka picked up a cool $3 million on Sunday without even touching his golf clubs. 
By virtue of finishing first in the FedEx Cup standings and thanks to the Wyndham Rewards top ten bonus cash, Koepka gets to add a bunch of zeroes to his bank account. His first-place finish there was good for $2 million. 
Koepka pocketed another $1 million for winning the season-long Aon Risk Reward Challenge. Alex Noren was the only one who could’ve gotten in Koepka’s way but he was a real long because he needed two double-eagles in four days on the 15th hole. Alas, he did not. 
But Koepka is not the only one who cashed in without playing. Eight others who finish in the regular-season top ten skipped the Wyndham Championship.
I had been reliably informed that you have to be in it to win it...  Notwithstanding the lack of drama, there's nothing wrong with a season-long awards pool, which the FedEx Cup is most certainly not, despite the Tour's insistence otherwise.

John Feinstein posts this tribute to the little golf tournament that could:
GREENSBORO, N.C. — It’s all good here in the Gate City. The PGA Tour event that began in 1938, and was known for years simply as “The GGO,” is thriving these days. 
Eighty-one years after Sam Snead won the first tournament and first-place money of $1,200 from a $5,000 purse, what’s now known as the Wyndham Championship—but remains the GGO in the hearts and minds of most locals—handed out a check Sunday evening for $1.116 million to J.T. Poston. 
Pretty good for a tournament that seemed to be a target for extinction 14 years ago. The tour was in the process of re-organizing its schedule in order to launch the FedEx Cup Playoffs starting in 2007, and the tournament’s title sponsor, Chrysler, had let it be known that it wouldn’t be renewing after its contract ran out following the 2006 tournament. Forest Oaks, the site of the event since 1977, was one of the least popular venues on tour with most players. The tour had made it clear for years that tradition and history had nothing to do with deciding a tournament’s future. Money and money did. 
And so, the tournament that Snead had won eight times, seemed likely to go the way of the Kemper Open and the Westchester Classic under the new tour setup.
Thriving might be a bit over the top, but they've lucked into a spot on the calendar that works for them.  Having landed there, they now need to resist any Tour initiatives that would put that date in peril.  

The Tour tells us that guys fighting to qualify for the playoffs is exciting, but I defy you to fins an article addressing this theoretically interesting aspect of the week.  But defying the Tour's edict that it's all good out there, there are no shortage of items on those that came up short.  For instance, this list of guys that lost their tour cards:
Why would you be surprised by any of those names unless you've been living in a bubble?  Some of them were good once upon a time, but in no case was that time recent.  perhaps the only surprise is that winning an off-field event doesn't provide enough points to get you into Liberty National, but all that tells us is that the Tour knows how weak those fields are.

Woe-Burn - If any of the week's golf mattered, it was the shocking result from the Women's British Open, though Shack's header is a bit over the top:
Did Shibuno Pull Off The Women's Major Championship Equivalent To Ouimet At Brookline?
And which of the contenders do you see in the role of Harry Vardon?  Mind you, I completely get Lizette Salas as Ted Ray....  Sit tight on that hate mail, as I expect you'll find more ammunition below.
Before the Women’s British Open, 20-year-old Hinako Shibuno had never teed it up before in a major championship or on the LPGA Tour. The rookie golfer had only been
playing on the Japan LPGA Tour in her home country. 
Now, after one start on the LPGA Tour, Shibuno is a major champion following her victory on Sunday in the Women’s British Open at Woburn Golf Club in England. She finished the tournament with a one-shot victory at 18-under over Lizette Salas, who posted a seven-under 65 to charge up the leaderboard for the low score of the day. 
Shibuno, who has earned the nickname “Smiling Cinderella”, entered Sunday’s final round with a two-stroke lead at 14-under. But Shibuno began her final round on poor footing after she double-bogeyed the par-4 third hole. She was able to bounce back with a pair of birdies at the par-4 fifth and par-5 seventh holes, but a bogey at the par-3 eighth hole would drop her to 13-under on the week. 
Shibuno would make the turn for the back-nine after a one-over 37 on the first nine holes. It looked as if the experienced veterans were going to catch her. But Shibuno turned on the jets, as she racked up five birdies over the final nine holes to shoot a five-under 31 on the back-nine and four-under 68 for the entire round. It was capped off by a tournament-clinching birdie at the par-4 18th hole.
Amusingly, they seem to have gone out of their way to find a picture of the young lady not smiling...  Geoff has this more typical image:


Lots of good quotes...First, from Beth Ann Nichols:
British fans were captivated by the speedy player with the double-jointed arms and a sweet tooth who never stopped smiling. They rose to their feet and roared when she drained an 18-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole to slip past American Lizette Salas by a single stroke on a day of riveting golf. It was a fairy-tale finish for the ages by a player nicknamed the “Smiling Cinderella” by Japanese media.
Did you catch those arms?


Double-jointed women are the stuff of frat house legend, though that might not apply to elbows....

The Tour Confidential panel took time out from their 24/7 Tiger coverage to spare a moment for this event, including the historical analogies:
4. In just her first career start out of Japan and on the LPGA, 20-year-old Hinako Shibuno won the Women’s British Open by one over Lizette Salas. Where does this rank among the most stunning pro debuts of all time? 
Sens: Impressive. I can’t think of one. Not an exact comparison, since it wasn’t his first start, but John Daly’s win was a stunner of all stunners, not just because it came so out of the blue but because it announced him as a breed apart. You thought, Wow, this dude is playing a different game. 
Zak: It has to be No. 1! She took it deep, under pressure, at 20, over an elite field. Absolutely wild. 
Ritter: I’ve got nothing. A major win in a pro debut? At age 20? The only drawback is that from here there’s nowhere to go but down! 
Wood: I’ll give it a rating of 1b. Daly wasn’t even in the field at the beginning of the week when he shocked the world and won the PGA. At least Hinako was in the field. 
Bamberger: Crenshaw won his first Tour event, but what Hinako did was at an even higher level. A major!
It's a stunner, for sure, given her complete lack of experience outside of Japan, but none of the analogies seem especially apt.

I didn't see a lot of it, and none of yesterday's play in particular.  I'm inclined to be impressed, because she had to sleep on the lead and overcame early-round hiccups.  Of course, I was similarly impressed by Shaun Micheel's PGA Championship win, and we know how that career evolved.

But I'd like to note that this is one of the few players in the field that didn't play at Evian....  Perhaps, and I hesitate to mention this, but maybe this back-to-back majors isn't the best of ideas?   

Or perhaps it's all Lexi's fault, as Hinako undoubtedly got her Monday practice round in....Just sayin'.

The Jordan Rules - Our hero has fallen on hard times, the best indication of which was his mere presence in the field in Greensboro....There was a triumphalism to be found over his Thursday 64, which only led to abject shock after Saturday's meltdown:
Things went awry quickly for Jordan Spieth during the third round of the Wyndham Championship, and they did not get any better. 
Spieth made a sloppy double bogey on the opening hole, hit a ball out of bounds for the
third straight day and failed to make a single birdie on a course softened by rain where shooting 66 largely meant keeping pace. Instead for Spieth it was a disastrous, 7-over 77 that marked the highest score shot by any player through three rounds at Sedgefield Country Club. 
“It was just a bad day,” Spieth said plainly. “Overall, just didn’t play well.” 
“On the front nine I actually had decent looks at birdie on a lot of holes,” he said. “And then No. 10, when I hit that one out of bounds, it was like, ‘Man, I don’t know what’s going on.’”
Golf remains hard, though I had been reliably informed that he was so close to regaining his form... 

But how about the timing of the Golf Digest instructional item by a certain Jordan Spieth:

HOW TO GET YOUR A-GAME BACK
Pot, kettle.  How about you get your C-game back before telling us how to get our A-games back?

At this point, how secure is Michael Greller,s job?  

Things No One Is Talking About - That jibe at the TC panel comes after many weeks of Tiger-mono-vision, but even by their standards this was a silly lede:
1. Following his missed cut at the Open Championship, Tiger Woods returns to action at this week’s FedEx Cup Playoffs opener, The Northern Trust at Liberty National in Jersey City, N.J. It’s the first of two straight starts for Woods, who isn’t yet guaranteed a spot in the Tour Championship three weeks from now. With an epic Masters victory anchoring his case (but not much else) and two or three starts remaining, could Woods still win the Tour’s Player of the Year award, an honor which is decided by the players themselves? Or can we just hand the award to Brooks Koepka now?
Seriously?  Not only has Tiger not cared about a single golf shot he's played since April, but who gives a flying-you-know-what about POY?  is it possible that they don't know what the "Y" stands for?

When do we think folks might wake up to the fact that Tiger is very much on the bubble to even make it to East Lake... to, you know, defend.

Alan Shipnuck's weekly mailbag feature showed up too late to be blogged last week, but featured some more interesting questions on the Big Cat:
Tiger is currently 12th in the US Presidents Cup standings. If TW doesn’t automatically qualify do you think he uses a captain’s choice on himself? – @DreamWeaver2784 
I hope so, because watching Tiger juggle playing-captain duties is the primary reason I’ve been excited about this Presidents Cup? Who will he pair himself with? Whom does he want to take on in singles? It’d be great theater and I hope we’re not robbed of it.
Interesting issue for sure, though with this event in such need of buzz, you'd have to think it a sure thing....
Any way Tiger does NOT pick Phil as an assistant captain for the Presidents Cup? There is no way he is on the team as a player; what would be the fallout if he’s totally excluded? #AskAlan – @ShootingYourAge 
Yes, in the post-Task Force era the Presidents Cup has become an important training ground for future Ryder Cup captains, and that is certainly in Phil’s future. Mickelson has been a de facto team leader for years, and not because of his play. It will be an easy transition into a pom-pom waving assistant captain.
If only I could be similarly confident that Tiger won't select Phil to play....  But, as Alan and the questioner (could that be Bobby D.?), Phil's hostile takeover of the Ryder Cup in 2014 ensures his presence at this event in some form.

Ode To The Round Bellies - Shane Ryan pens a love letter to the Senior Tour (sorry, PGA Tour Champions doesn't work for me), in which he makes an important point:
These senior tours don’t enjoy the same status as other professional tours, but the impressive thing is that they enjoy status at all—and that the status is significant. It can
be measured, in part, by money: The winners of PGA Tour Champions events make up to $720,000 (that was Steve Stricker’s take at this year’s U.S. Senior Open), and never less than $240,000. Already in 2019, nine players have made more than $1 million. For the entire season, the total purses almost reach $60 million. Those numbers don’t exist in a vacuum—it means that people want to come watch older golfers in person, and, more important, they will watch them on TV, too. 
It’s tough to calculate the exact value of the PGA Tour Champions, because it comes as a TV package with the PGA Tour (and the Korn Ferry Tour), and to some extent it might be subsidized by its more popular partner. But it’s also fair to say that it wouldn’t offer more prize money than the Asian or Japanese tours if it didn’t have a fair amount of popular clout. 
Anecdotally, you can also measure the status of golf’s senior tours by coverage. It would be impossible to imagine reading pieces like John Feinstein’s essay on Tom Watson’s farewell to the Senior Open Championship, or John Strege’s coverage of Bernhard Langer winning the same tournament at age 62, in any other sport—just as it would be laughable to think of another sport that could round up $60 million for a league of old men.
As Shane notes, these guys are still playing an extremely high caliber of golf, which people want to watch.  But, to paraphrase the classic N.Y. Times faux-header, women are undoubtedly the hardest hit, because they find themselves competing against these guys for attention and sponsorship dollars.

This tees up one of my signature segues into the disparity of money between the women's and men's games.  First, this bit on a silly sideshow:
Enter Aon, a global professional services firm that provides a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions, and its new Aon Risk Reward Challenge.
It’s a season-long competition across both the PGA Tour and LPGA that offers a $1 million prize to both winners. 
Georgia on my mind.
Players take their best two scores from each designated hole, with the winner having the best average score to par at the end of the regular season. 
Lee-Anne Pace leads the race on the LPGA with Hyo Joo Kim and Ariya Jutanugarn on her heels. Only 14 players crossed the $1 million mark in season earnings last year. Pace has earned $43,433 so far this season. 
By contrast, 114 men on the PGA Tour won more than $1 million in 2018. Brooks Koepka and Jason Day currently lead the men’s Aon Risk Reward race. 
“For the winner, it could be the most they’ve ever won in their career,” Aon ambassador Georgia Hall said on the seventh tee on Woburn’s Marquess Course. “I think that says it all really, that it could be such a great opportunity for us.”
They're big boys at Aon, so perhaps this is worth it to subsidize the women's portion of the prize money.  But no one can pretend that the exposure on the broadcasts has equal value...

And this Ladies European Tour player makes a Kinseyesque gaffe, the kind where you inadvertently tell the truth.  In the midst of bemoaning the struggles of the ladies (which are very real and admirable), she let this cat out of the bag:
MacLaren is aware of the financial motivations behind this breakdown. Companies are looking for exposure, and the LET gets limited TV coverage. Thus continues the vicious cycle. It’s why she explained the companies are more likely to back social media influencers than touring professionals. 
“As tour players in Europe we can’t give them that exposure,” she said.
So, where's the plan to get people interested?  Pretty much this:
MacLaren’s dream vision for a more successful Ladies’ European Tour involves one big sponsor.
Her plan basically revolves around one party making a suicidal economic bet....  Good luck with that.  Were she an American, I'd think she's be a Bernie Sanders supporter. Although, to her credit, she's far more economically knowledgeable than Bernie...

Alan In Full - A few more snippets from Shippy,just because it's low aerobic blogging.  On BK:
Koepka is living rent free in what percentage of PGA pros’ heads? – @Jpancake1 
Roughly 99%. The only possible exception is one Eldrick Tont Woods, if only because when it mattered most, Masters Sunday, Koepka couldn’t handle the fan hysteria and the weight of history that Tiger brought to their dogfight. But even Tiger knows deep down that Koepka has more game these days.
Unless, yanno, he's paired with JB....
Is Koepka’s success a message that practice is overrated? That if I stop hitting all those balls on the range, this mid- to high-handicap suffer might actually get better? – @TheMrLandon 
If, like Brooks, your swing is technically perfect and you have bulletproof confidence in it, if your short-game is rock-solid and your putting stroke flawless than, yes, feel free to practice less.
What's a high-handicap suffer?  Seriously, dude, nothing done on Tour has any relationship to your golf.... 
Koepka’s locked up the Aon and Wyndham bonuses without needing to play this week. What inane “leaderboard” will the suits think up next, for the 2019-20 season? The Big Crypto “Circle of Friendship” Longest Putt Award? The Longest Holeout, brought to you by Target? – @ANTIFAldo 
You’re looking at this entirely backward. These awards are not about fan enjoyment. The Tour has one mandate: fleece sponsors and put that money in the pocket of the players and the salary of Tour staffers. In this regards, these silly bonuses have been a wild success.
Aon for sure, but there's nothin off-putting about a season-long prize pool.

We've been over this ground many times, but this gets at the insanity of the so-called playoffs.  Of course they're a joke, because the win-or-go-home dynamic can't be applied to golf, where even the best players win infrequently.

The inanity of the Reset Cup (as named by Shack), is caused by their refusal to decide between two mutually exclusive requirements, that it deliver a credible champion and maintain an uncertain outcome until east Lake.  That circle stubbornly refuses to be squared.

My hope has long been that the Tour would give up the ghost on it being "playoffs", and turn it into a high-stakes shootout.  In that context, a bonus pool for the season makes all the sense in the world, as it frees us to watch the players fight over an obscene amount of money, without having to worry about what it all means....  I picture about eight guys playing Sunday for $10 million large....  think anyone would watch?

A couple more:
What do you think of Lexi? Absent minded blonde? Princess blonde? Self deserving blonde? – @anjipate 
Given that I once left my freakin’ laptop at an airport eatery I’m not going to condemn Lexi for forgetting her passport in her golf bag. The blame for this belongs to the truck driver, who made a series of curious choices, and Lexi’s handlers, who are paid extravagantly to do crisis management and avoid these cock-ups.
Anyone know what a self deserving blonde is?   The bigger question with Lexi has always been her fragility...  But yeah, they all messed up big time, though Lexi is likely more popular in Japan than she was a week ago.

Catch you tomorrow?
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