They've just pushed back tomorrow's tee times at Fairview by an hour, presumably anticipating frost. As I see it, that gives us another hour to blog....
Scenes From the CJ Cup - In that mailbag that we dissected yesterday, Alan Shipnuck had this question that I left on the cutting room floor:
Do you think Justin Thomas should be offended that he is not on the Nine Bridges ad on Golf Channel? The ad says that Phil/Speith are likely to stop Bruce’s repeat win! -@anjipate
Of course not, but he probably is, and will likely shoot 30-under, win by 10 and then dunk all over the Golf Channel. It never fails to amaze me what bothers these guys. If I was young, immensely talented, generationally wealthy, and lucky enough to play golf every day on the world’s best courses, y’all could talk all the smack you want and I would be way too busy polishing my trophies/partying with models on my yacht to even notice.
I passed on it for multiple reasons, among which are the fact that I haven't seen the promo and I don't really care.... That said, Alan's call is looking pretty good through 36 holes:
Justin Thomas shot a 9-under 63 Friday to take a two-stroke lead at CJ Cup at NineBridges, putting himself in position to win his second PGA Tour event in South Korea in three years.
Thomas, who won the inaugural CJ Cup in 2017, had a two-round total of 13-under 131.
South Korean-born New Zealander Danny Lee (66) was in a tie for second place with first-round leader and former U.S. Amateur champion Byeong Hun An, who shot 69.Jordan Spieth (65) and Emilaino Grillo (66) were tied for fourth, four strokes behind.
Hey, if I'm the '62 Mets of fantasy golf Shippy, with his 2017 prediction of an era of U.S. Ryder Cup dominance, qualifies as the 2019 Orioles....
The focus is on Prez Cup wannabees, and you no doubt picke dup on Spith's name in that excerpt above. Shane Ryan helpfully applies his handicapping acumen to Ernie's menu options, but first a reminder of his automatic qualifiers:
Automatic International team selections: Marc Leishman, Hideki Matsuyama, Louis Oosthuizen, Adam Scott, Abraham Ancer, Li Haotong, Pan Cheng-tsung, Cameron Smith
Doesn't exactly blow one away, does it? So, this guy will not shock:
Jason Day: 100 percent
Day finished ninth in the final points standings, with the top eight becoming automatic picks. Considering the fact that the Cup will be played in his home country, Day joining the team is a lock. How do I know? Well, Els told us. “You might have a debate for one or two of the [potential captain’s picks] but I think there are two guys who are pretty obvious,” Els said. Day is the most obvious. As for the other?
C'mon, the suspense is killing me:
Sungjae Im: 99.99 percent
The reigning PGA Tour rookie of the year was 11th in points during the qualifying period but has easily the most impressive résumé of those in need of Els’ generosity. And since finishing the 2018-’19 season at the Tour Championship, Im has finished second in a playoff at the PGA Tour’s Sanderson Farms Championship and won the Genesis Championship in South Korea. I’m only docking Im .01 percentage points because he’s not Australian, but, again, Els has all but told us Im’s on the team. And in fact, there are no other South Korean players who qualified automatically, so his nationality gives him an extra boost, even if he didn’t really need it.
Yeah, that makes sense, though he's not a name that will have us setting the alarm clock.
The Q-factor heads in only one direction here, though this guy gets my nod:
Jazz Janewattananond: 43.5 percent
This was absolutely the trickiest guy to handicap. Jazz (I hope you’ll forgive me forsticking with the first name) finished 10th on the points list, just behind Day, and he’s put up a couple strong finishes in the past three weeks, with a T-4 and a solo fourth in Japan. The Thai native put himself on the “lets discuss” list with two Asian Tour wins and a 14th at the PGA Championship at Bethpage, and he’d give Els a golfer from Southeast Asia. He should have a chance here … so why do I feel like he doesn’t, and that this percentage is too high? Maybe it’s because Els hasn’t mentioned him extensively, and maybe it’s because he’s a rookie, and maybe it’s because he’d be on his own, language-wise. In any case, he deserves at least a coin-flip chance, but I have a feeling he’s not truly in consideration. That said, he’s in both the CJ Cup and the WGC-HSBC, so he has every chance to play his way on.
As for this guy, I don't think so:
Ernie Els: 0.01 percent
In August, Els said he didn’t want to put himself “100 percent out,” and apparently Adam Scott kept telling him to consider himself for a pick. Els' appearances since then have been not good, and this is absolutely not going to happen, but I’m respecting the captain’s math.
The real issue here is how poorly guys like Day and Scott have played in this event over the years. It has to change at some point, and I've got this hunch that the U.S. team might be ripe for a letdown.
A Deep Dive on Handicaps - With a year under our belt, how are we feeling about the new rulebook? I'm gonna go with mixed, which I think is grading on a curve. Because even when changing something for the better, caddies lining up their play as a for instance, they really can't help cocking it up... Just think about the penalties early in the Tour season, and the immediate rewrite necessary.... And don't get me started on their dumbing down of our vocabulary....
Why rant on that at the present moment? Because the handicap system is about to change, and the same forces will be in play... These folks simply can't help themselves.
Sean Zak has the tutorial, and let's start at the beginning:
The USGA and R&A have worked steadfastly to create a new world order … of handicaps. The result is a system that every golfer in the world can use at any course in the world. One that will allow you to compete equitably whether you’re playing a match in Dublin, Ohio, or Dublin, Ireland, Africa or Arkansas. The burning question for many golfers: Will my current index increase or decrease? It will, but not by much (look for it to go up or down a tick or two if keep your handicap in the U.S, maybe none at all.; look for it to rise slightly if you play in the British Isles). More important, the way you keep a handicap will be altered. Here’s everything you need to know with a little help from Steve Edmondson, the USGA’s managing director of handicapping and course rating.
What is happening to my handicap?
In short, it is getting better and global. For most folks who use the USGA Handicap System there will be little change. The current system computes your 10 best scores from your 20 most recent rounds. Under the new system only your top eight rounds will count toward your handicap, so if those 9th and 10th best rounds aren’t so hot, expect your index to improve. The 96% multiplier that existed in the old handicap system no longer exists, which should make calculating index changes in your head a bit easier for those quick with numbers.
I thought there already was a world handicap system?
Nope! There are actually six different systems in place around the world. Today, when American golfers want to post a score abroad, they might discover that that course may not have been rated via the USGA Course Rating System. Beginning next year all courses across the world — save for a few — will have the same grading system, dubbed “The Course Rating System.” This is a significant change that required raters to get out and assess roughly 3,000 courses around the world. No small job. Take a sprawling continent like Africa, for example. Raters there started in South Africa, Edmondson says, “and once they finished all their courses, they branched out to Angola, to Botswana, to Comoros, to DRC, Madagascar, Malawi.”
Ya got that? You'll now be able to post that score from Madagascar, so we've got that going for us.... But the necessity of re-rating every golf course on the planet seems excessive, given the resources of many of these clubs and governing bodies. As with a halve becoming a tie, they devote their efforts to solving marginal problems, while ignoring that actual threats to our game.
Now this bit is new to me, and seems unworthy of the effort (though strangely similar to a point I've long made):
What happens when I shoot 90 in good weather and 92 in bad weather?
The latter might actually improve your index more that the former. Because of the new Playing Conditions Calculation (PCC), scores posted at the same course on the same day will help determine if the course played more difficult (or easier) than normal, due to conditions or setup. Handicap differentials from all abilities of players will work together to create this calculation, and your handicap could be impacted because of it. “You look at the field for all scores posted on that day, regardless of what tee they played,”
Edmondson said. “We know from our player equations from what we’ve modeled in the Handicap Index what are the expected scores for every golfer. When you get so many golfers that are higher or lower — outside of that [score] funnel — you would have an adjustment. This course played one stroke harder [than normal]. This course played two strokes harder. This course played one stroke easier.”
According to the USGA, this adjustment will not happen often, but it’s another reason why it’s important to post your score on the day you played. Scores posted retroactively will not contribute to the PCC, though they will be impacted by it. You’re helping the USGA (and golfers everywhere) by feeding more data into the system.
I've long said that the head professionals at links in the GB&I should a post a sign each morning to the effect that "Today's Handicap is X". In a wee 10-mph wind a links might be a 72, but when the wind is in the mid-twenties it's an 80.
My question here is the value of the added complexity, especially since handicaps are most often used within the same ecosystem.
But now let's get to the area in which I think this might flounder, though admittedly the current system was pretty bad:
What does this mean for Equitable Stroke Control?
We’re impressed you know what ESC is! For those who don’t, a quick primer: At its core, handicapping is a hole-by-hole exercise, in which each hole has a maximum number of strokes one can make. The new guideline is Net Double Bogey.
If a player with a course handicap of 15 is playing the hole rated 11th-most difficult, the worst score he or she can submit on that hole would be a double bogey plus 1 — i.e., if the 11th-most difficult hole is a par 3, a score of 6 on that hole would register as a net double bogey.
Likewise, if a player with a course handicap of 15 is playing the 17th-most difficult hole, the worst score he or she could submit would simply be a double bogey, given the “net” aspect doesn’t apply on that 17th-toughest hole.
As the man said, don't double down on stupid.
The current system was far easier for the player to remember, unless you're a player that vacillates between a nine and a ten. Because while the 0-9's can take double bogeys, the 10's can take a seven on any hole, regardless of par. At the time the USGA offered all sorts of statistical analyses to support this oddity, completely ignoring human nature. Even were they correct, and I remained stubbornly unconvinced, it quite obviously wasn't worth complicating things unnecessarily.... that's a lesson they've yet to learn:
Do you see the complication inherent? The maximum score one can take varies with the handicap ranking of the hoe and its par... There is little chance that this will be implemented correctly by the legions of recreational golfers, so good luck with the accuracy of your brave new world.
Another I hadn't heard of previously is the Bobby D. rule:
Any other major changes?
There are new handiCAPS, as in “caps” on your index if you run into poor form. Get the shanks for a month? Sheesh. If you post six scores in the 100s when you’re normally an 80s-shooter, you will probably run into what is now called the “soft cap.” If your handicap decreases (gets worse) by three points in a 12-month span, further decreases will only be calculated at 50%. Heaven forbid those shanks continue, a “hard cap” is instituted when your index decreases by five in a 12-month span.
But they'll update immediately, so your handicap will be less accurate and more timely.... or something.
Got Those Ryder Cup Tix? - In which the PGA of America unnecessarily pisses off their target audience. Here's how it went down:
The Ryder Cup is coming to Whistling Straits and Wisconsin next September. Some of you might be there, some of you might not, and perhaps many of you missed out on getting tickets on Wednesday morning.
Last week fans who signed up for the ticket lottery started receiving emails saying they’d been selected, but that only meant they’d been selected for the “random selection process” and still had to wait in line on Wednesday morning when the ticketing window opened.
So, how does one add insult to injury?
With an immediate push to purchase marked-up tickets:
The primary issues involve the lack of a lottery sensibility detected by fans and a landslide of unsuccessful outcomes due to a combination of technical problems. The situation appears to have been worsened by immediate offers to the unsuccessful buyers for purchase of wildly marked-up prices on the PGA of America’s exchange partner, PrimeSport, with Sunday prices already starting at at $427.50 per ticket.
That'll bring in those millennials and non-golfers.... Pathetic.
We Don't Need No Stinkin' Off-Season - I had this off-season pegged at two weeks, so news that it will be halved comes as quite the shock:
With the Korn Ferry Tour’s release of its 2020 schedule, The Forecaddie was pleased tosee the addition of four new events, nearly $19 million in purses and even traditional season-opening events in the hurricane-ravaged Bahamas.
Yet The Man Out Front could not get past the dates for the Korn Ferry Tour playoffs.The season-ending stretch will compete head-to-head with the PGA Tour playoffs, right down to the final Sunday of Aug. 30.
Which means while the FedEx Cup comes to a conclusion at East Lake, the Korn Ferry Tour’s always valiant battles to gain Tour cards will be playing out at Victoria National and once again presented by United Leasing but without the spotlight those finals enjoyed this year when finishing on Labor Day, a week clear of the 2019 Tour Championship.
Why is the PGA Tour putting the Korn Ferry Tour against its Super Bowl?The Forecaddie reached out to a PGA Tour official and learned the date was selected to give the Korn Ferry grads a much-needed week off before the 2020-21 PGA Tour schedule starts the week of Sept. 7.
Boy are they considerate.... Those KF grads have to play the early events, because many of them won't have a tee time when the schedule gets going going for real. But I'm so old that I can remember when it was imprudent to have golf compete with the NFL....
A pox on them all.... Have a great weekend.
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