Weekend Wrap

It's a sad day for sure, as that sound you hear is our greens being punched....  On a more optimistic note, one month from today I'll be on skis.  The times they are a changin'....

Shanghaied - When it matters least, you can count on him being at his best:

After winning the FedEx Cup title in August and taking PGA Tour player-of-the-year honors, few would have blamed Rory McIlroy for easing through the rest of 2019.

McIlroy proved it wasn’t just talk, coming out and winning the WGC-HSBC Champions in his second PGA Tour start of the 2019-’20 season. It was McIlroy’s fourth tournament victory in the nearly eight months and his 16th top-10 performance in 20 starts in 2019. 

There was nothing cheap about McIlroy’s 18th career tour win, either. A Sunday 68, his second consecutive bogey-free round, push him to 19-under 269. But also pushing him was defending champion Xander Schauffele, whose closing 66 with birdies on the 15th and 18th holes, matched McIlroy’s 72-hole total and forced a playoff. 

Returning to the par-5 18th at Sheshan International Golf Club in Shanghai, McIlroy split the fairway and hit a 4-iron to 20 feet with his second shot. Meanwhile, Schauffele’s drive found the left rough, forcing him to lay up. Schauffele’s approach left him a 12-footer for birdie, but when he missed the putt, McIlroy’s two-putt for birdie gave him the title. 

“Even though it’s the end of the year, there’s still a lot to play for. At least there is for me, anyway,” said McIlroy, who finished third for third the previous week in Japan at the Zozo Championship. “You need to find things to motivate you and those are the things that motivated me to travel all this way to Asia and play hard the last couple weeks, and excited about how I’ve played.”

Still a lot to play for?  Perhaps we've just hit on the underlying issue....

Brian Wacker tries to convince us that we're looking at Rory 2.0, with a newfound consistency:

The reason for the consistency? 

“I think maybe more so than say when I first came out on tour, I try 100 percent over every shot, I think because I realize I don’t have as much time left as I used to when I was 20,” McIlroy said. “My concentration is better, and my mental capacity on the golf course is much better than it ever has been, and I think that’s a big key to why I’m able to play consistently week in, week out.”

The thing is, Rory is a player that's pretty much always been defined by his inconsistency, which wasn't exactly a bad thing.  And the game, as Tiger himself noted recently, is more and more about a small number of big weeks.  Again, there's nothing wrong with this, per se:

“The four wins this year have been wonderful,” McIlroy said of his titles at the Players, RBC Canadian Open, Tour Championship and WGC-HSBC. “But more than that, I think it is the consistency that I’m bringing week in, week out. Even if I don’t have my best stuff, at least I give myself a chance. Even last week in Japan [at the Zozo Championship], finding something after a couple of days and go on to produce a high finish [T-3 after a so-so opening-round 72].”

Fair enough, but at a certain point some may wonder why you're always shooting yourself in the foot in the early rounds at certain high-profile events.  Not me, of course, but others...

We'll dive in and out of this week's Tour Confidential round-table, beginning with their take on Rory v. Brooks:

4. Rory McIlroy birdied the first playoff hole to beat Xander Schauffele and win the WGC-HSBC Champions on Sunday in Shanghai, China. McIlroy, the reigning PGA Tour Player of the Year, has made two starts since Brooks Koepka said he doesn’t see anyone else as his rival in the sport, and in those he’s tied for third and won. Afterwards, Schauffele said that “when [Rory’s] on, I’d say he’s arguably the best player in the world.” True? 

Sens: Yes, though you could say that about a small handful of players “when they’re on,” Koepka and DJ among them. 

Dethier: Let’s suss out that list, shall we? If you look at guys whose best seems like it’s THE best, it’s just Rory and Koepka at the moment. Dustin Johnson hasn’t played well in six months, though he could easily re-join this list. Justin Thomas has a style of play that’s relentless and occasionally dominant, though rarely as spectacular. Tiger still sort of fits this criteria under specific conditions. That’s the complete list right now, five-deep, with some version of Jon Rahm knocking on the door. I’d give Rory the current edge given his lack of recent knee procedures. 

Bamberger: If Koepka is at his best and Rory is at his best, I’d give a slight edge to Koepka. Slight. And I can’t even tell you why I think that, except maybe his attitude. I’d rather play with Rory. 

Kerr-Dineen: I’ll take it one step further. Dare I say, when Rory is “on,” he might be the best player — ever. The problem with Rory has never been how good he is at his best. For Rory, it’s always been about maintaining those patches of form not just for a few weeks, but for months and seasons. 

Shipnuck: Rory is deadly when he’s freewheeling it on a semi-easy course at a non-major. But those are not the ultimate test. Brooks has shown he can summon his best golf on the toughest courses when it matters the most. Rory seems to have lost that ability. Until he finds it, Brooks is the answer.

But what about Rory's new-found consistency?  Next thing you know and he'll be posing with all those participation medals....

To me, Shipnuck nails it.  Rory has certain profound weaknesses in his game, his putting and distance control with his wedges most notably, and those hurt him most on the toughest tracks.  But more profound than that, Brooks is playing the swaggering big-game hunter and Rory is gloating over his back-door Top Tens, so who do you like at crunch time on the big stage?  You didn't need to agonize for long over that one, did you?

I Blame It On The Patriarchy - The ladies have not exactly been on a role lately, but what comes next is just not a good look.  You might want to freshen your coffee because this will take a little time.  The scene is LPGA Q-School, an eight-round war of attrition in which the ladies are playing for their professional lives.  So, given the stakes, you might think they'd have a passing familiarity with the rules of the game, though you'd be wrong:

Kendall Dye and Dewi Weber were still in shock about the whole thing after Q-Series ended. 

Dewi Weber

The incident took place on the 17 th hole during Round 6 at Pinehurst No. 9. 

As Dye tells it, Christina Kim hit first on the par 3. Then Weber, runner-up at the 2016 NCAA Championship while a freshman at Miami, stepped up to the tee. As Weber prepared to hit, Dye motioned toward Weber's caddie to ask if it was an 8-iron. Jacqueline Schram signaled back to confirm that it was, indeed, an 8-iron. 

(Interestingly, Weber accidentally pulled the wrong club out of the bag and hit 9-iron, coming up short. Dye hit a 7-iron to 15 feet and three-putted.)

OK, fortunately I don't need to explain to my what we just witnessed, as you're well aware that's a no-no.  And while it's gonna get a little more complicated, but let's take a moment to enjoy that last bit....  Almost as funny as the guy that used an old greens book and was penalized for its now illegal font size, blissfully unaware that the greens had been rebuilt in the interim, rendering the illegal aide useless. 

Shack is all over this issue, likening the players helping each other to...wait for it, backstopping:

The Rules of Golf can be cruel, as they were in this case for Weber, who trusted her caddie to know you don’t openly share information with players other than your own.

And for Kim, who had to be wondering how oblivious her playing partner had to be to so brazenly ask the opposition for advice, she is now unfairly getting blowback for reporting a very basic and simple rules violation. 

That’s pathetic. A professional golfer or caddie at an event as significant as qualifying school must be aware such information sharing is a no-no. More likely, this is another sign of the bizarre, we’re-all-in-this-together mindset in modern competitive golf. 

Remember backstopping? The oddball practice of players chipping up to the hole and leaving their ball down under the guise of speeding up play? It was all very much a spirit of the rules breach that morphed into a blatant rules violation when some subtle changes were made to the 2019 Rules of Golf. Backstopping started on the PGA Tour innocently as a pace of play gesture at Riviera’s diabolical 10th green, and it morphed into a you-scratch-my-back, I’ll-scratch-yours-if-the-opportunity-arises gesture that became an expected act of generosity in pro golf’s buddy culture.

Errr...yes, but.  I actually agree with Geoff, though we do need to acknowledge that the rules are a bit more Byazantine than we'd like.  From Dye's statement after the fact:

“I take 100 percent responsibility for the infraction and shame on me for not knowing this was a rule,” she said. “I have played professional golf for 10 years and have seen this done thousands of times between players, caddies and media and never seen one penalty called. I am completely gutted for causing another innocent player two strokes during this incident.” 

Dye went on to say that it was handled and closed in a private matter, but added she was “disappointed in a fellow player’s unprofessional and public action for taking this to Twitter.”

The first bit is disingenuous, whether intentionally so I can't say.  It's the inclusion of "media" that renders it so, because we've always allowed caddies to communicate clubs to the TV crew, so the waters are indeed muddy.  Also muddy because we've allowed players to look in the bags of their playing partners, but not to ask or to move a towel that might be covering the remaining clubs.

That said, it's hard to imagine a professional golfer just assuming a right to know what club another hit....Almost as curious as her expectation that this is a private matter.... Though I'd agree that perhaps Twitter isn't the best forum for discussion.

But then we come to the curious behavior of Christina Kim....  who saw all of this, but then held her peace until the round was over:

While Kim didn't name any names or divulge what happened on twitter, she did say that she "had to sit on this for the entire day so as not to ruin the rest of the round (because) I thought it would have gotten in their heads." 

Kim didn't want to talk to Golfweek about the specifics of what happened. 

"It was innocent," said Kim. "There was no malice."

You did what?  What if they did it again on the next hole?  That would have been two more strokes, right?

For Weber, 23, things got worse. She was T27 without the penalty but went to T37 with the two strokes tacked on. Luckily she was still on the right side of the cut line with two

rounds to play, since the top 45 get LPGA status for 2020. (She was a Symetra Tour

rookie in 2019.) But Golfweek’s Beth Ann Nichols reported neither Weber nor her caddie, Schram, slept or ate that night. And the next day, in the seventh round of the crucial qualifying series, Weber plummeted down the leaderboard, and out of contention, with an 82. 

“It affected me way too much,” Weber told Golfweek. “It shouldn’t have. That’s absolutely, 100 percent on me.”

Here's the TC panel's take on Kim's timing:

3. Pros Kendall Dye and Dewi Weber were each penalized two strokes for violating Rule 10.2, Advice and Other Help, during the sixth round of LPGA Q-Series when Dye asked Weber’s caddie what club she was hitting (and the caddie answered) on a par-3. Competitors can look into other bags to see what clubs players are using by the process of elimination, but they can not ask or gesture in that manner. Neither pro said they knew of this rule, and the violation was reported by the other player in the group, veteran Christina Kim. Kim, who went on a tweet storm discussing the incident, could have told the players immediately after it happened but waited 10 holes until their round was finished. She said on Twitter she waited because “I thought it would have gotten in their heads,” although both players told Golfweek they wished Kim would have told them right away. Did Kim do the right thing by waiting to tell them, or was it the players’ right to be told immediately and know a penalty was looming? 

Sens: Kim was in an unenviable position; she was going to catch some flack no matter how she handled it. But rules issues should be called out on the spot. The strange part was that this came up at all. There are plenty of obscure rules in golf. This isn’t even close to being one of them. Back in the gritty old days, the grizzled vets used to cover their bags with towels so no one could even peek in (which is legal). Friendlier time, I guess. 

Dethier: As a (clears throat) two-time PGA Tour caddie, I noticed for the first time that there was an expectation we’d flash the TV crews the number club we were hitting — but certainly never another player. I think Kim probably should have told them just to avoid the possibility that Dye would repeat the mistake and double the damage. 

Bamberger: That rule is so basic it boggles the mind that you could get that good at golf and not know it. Kim was probably completely flummoxed. Still, she should have told them earlier. 

Kerr-Dineen: This was clearly either a misunderstanding, or, at worst, a violation of a rule so pointless that you wonder why it exists at all. Regardless, we should all agree it was handled really poorly by Kim. Yes, she should have told them earlier. She didn’t, and to make matters worse, she aired all that laundry in a strange, cryptic, back-handed way on Twitter. 

Shipnuck: I think she did the right thing, given the built-in pressure of the Q-Series. It would have destroyed those players for the rest of the round. This way they had time to absorb the penalty and reset for the next round.

I think these guys all miss the essential point, that you have to tell them immediately so they don't do it again....  As for Alan's point, perhaps he wrote it unaware of the effect it had on Weber the next day, but the point is to not play God.  You tell players in the moment and head off any further incidents, the more so when you know it's inadvertent.

Not a good look, girls, if you want us to take you seriously as athletes....  But Geoff also tells us that our long national nightmare is over:

Remember backstopping? The oddball practice of players chipping up to the hole and leaving their ball down under the guise of speeding up play? It was all very much a spirit of the rules breach that morphed into a blatant rules violation when some subtle changes were made to the 2019 Rules of Golf. Backstopping started on the PGA Tour innocently as a pace of play gesture at Riviera’s diabolical 10th green, and it morphed into a you-scratch-my-back, I’ll-scratch-yours-if-the-opportunity-arises gesture that became an expected act of generosity in pro golf’s buddy culture. 

That practice has all but stopped thanks to the revised language and after Ariya Jutanugarn left a ball down in Thailand, leading to Amy Olsen giggling all the way to a virtual tap-in. Olson was around the top of the leaderboard, and the episode became a spectacle by exhibiting how the practice looked when seen in high-profile fashion.

Backstopping is over?  Boy, I didn't get the memo, and I'm even more skeptical of it's demise being caused by an incident on the LPGA Tour in the middle of the night.  Stay tuned to this space...

Before we leave the gals, think things are a little tangled out there?  This, you'l agree, is quite the header:

Nelly Korda defends her title in Taiwan, credits her caddie, who happens to be the runner-up's fiancé

Well, he was, in any event.....

Game, Changed -  I'm still trying to figure this out, but the Confidentialistas, with one exception, seem in line with my reaction:

5. Just days after the news surfaced that CBS Sports would not renew the contracts of long-time analysts Gary McCord and Peter Kostis (and said coverage was becoming “stale”), the network announced Davis Love III was coming on as a full-time analyst, with his debut coming at the Farmers Insurance Open in January. Like the hire? 

Sens: Hate to hedge, but too early to tell. He could be the Tour’s version of Tony Romo, bringing all sorts of frank, refreshing and insightful commentary by laying bare all his insider knowledge. But the experience Love has can cut both ways, as he’s friendly with so many of the players. Chumminess can lead to some really boring announcing, so let’s hope Love lets it fly. 

Josh, any thoughts on the French Revolution?

Dethier: Nothing I’ve seen from Love’s playing career or captaincy would lead me to

believe we’re going to get unfiltered fresh takes. That’s not a knock on the guy! Just the nature of the biz. But despite their desire to freshen things up, I don’t think CBS actually wants to take too big a risk. The people are used to the golf just so. 

Kerr-Dineen: It seems like a bit of an uninspiring hire from the onset, but the powers-that-be clearly saw something in him. I’ll need some convincing that it’ll be some game-changer for the network; I’d have loved to see them take a swing at someone slightly more surprising. Michelle Wie springs to mind. 

Shipnuck: Davis has long been a good interview for guys like us but it seems like an overly safe hire. He’ll be…fine. CBS needed to swing for the fences and that’s not Davis.

To me, Shipnuck raises an interesting point....  Do they need to swing for the fences and, if so, please explain?  Because I have no ides where we are on that subject, and whether CBS is a lock or at risk.

The dissenting opinion was Bamberger, who penned this ode to his friend Davis:

NBC has the ultimate course whisperer, Mr. Roger Maltbie. But Davis M. Love 3d is going to be, in his own way, a font of golfing insight in his new gig. To be good at it, all

he has to do is be the same person with a microphone under his chin as he is with a dinner plate beneath it. 

This is coming to you from one of his many friends in the game, so keep that in mind. But for almost 30 years now, I have been astounded by Davis’ insights into golfers, golf courses, fan behavior, Tour politics, caddie-player relationships, instruction and instructors, the swing under pressure and virtually every other subject related to the game in which he was raised. The job of his new bosses (easier to type than to do) is to find a way to let Davis be Davis.

Let Davis be Davis is no doubt a rallying cry for the ages, right up there with Release the Kraken.... I'd be willing to stipulate that Davis seems a nice lad, but is there more there than he's let us see?  Because those words of praise come right after Davis shared this out-of-the-blue insight:

You want bold? Let’s go to DL3 at 16! 

“Tiger will become the No. 1 player in the world again,” the new CBS golf analyst said the other day. 

To do that, as it stands right now, Woods would need to leapfrog Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy and Brooks Koepka. And that’s what Davis Love predicts will happen.

Wow, that's way out there, Davis....  Of course, we don't want to let complications like his health and whether he can play enough to get to No. 1 harsh our mellow, but I hope he's got more than warmed over Tiger-worship on offer.   And this is how he closes the ode:

“Did you see Tiger walking off 18 in Japan when it was over?” Davis said the other day. “Did you see who he was walking with?” His wingman, Rob McNamara. His girlfriend, Erica Herman. “That’s a big part of where Tiger is right now.” 

Tell us more, Davis.

I'm much more interested in the larger picture of where the Tour is going with its media, and what CBS thinks is needed to be part of the plan.  Davis seems a perfect match for the bland, treacly CBS broadcasts, so I do hope that Bamberger is correct.

Prez Cup Stuff -  A couple from the TC gang:

1. The Presidents Cup gets one step closer to becoming a reality when Tiger Woods and Ernie Els finalize their rosters by making their captain’s picks on Wednesday (International team) and Thursday (U.S.). What will Woods’ most difficult Presidents Cup duty be? Making the right captain’s picks? Managing how much he plays himself (if he’s picked)? The pairings? Motivating the squad? Something else? 

Josh Sens: Tiger could close his eyes and point randomly to a list of the top 10 captain’s picks candidates and come up with four great options, so that doesn’t seem too tough.

Ditto managing himself. Motivation shouldn’t be an issue either. These guys have a record of dominance to defend. Pairings are the decisions that tend to get second-guessed most often, and they could get a little complicated. Say Tiger selects Reed as a captain’s pick. Who does he match him up with? But, like they say, first-world problems. 

Dylan Dethier,: Jet lag. As Sens lays out, the team stuff should take care of itself — these guys aren’t going to be looking to Woods for, like, swing tips. They’ll be fine. But this is a guy who looked exhausted during last year’s Ryder Cup (and was 0-4). For someone who struggles with sleeping, the trek to Australia right after playing the Hero World Challenge doesn’t sound ideal. Also, finding a teammate who will embrace Bryson’s peculiarities… 

Michael Bamberger: No question about it: jet lag. Long trip from Albany, The Bahamas, with a stop for fuel on some island-nation in the Pacific. 

Alan Shipnuck: Not hurting his teammates’ feelings. All these guys idolize Tiger but only three will get to play with him; by definition, those are his favorites, and there will be some low-key hurt feelings among those who aren’t deemed the Cool Kids. 

Luke Kerr-Dineen: If the last Ryder Cup was any indication, it’ll be playing peacemaker (and at times, fight club referee) between the various egos within the U.S. team. It’s always been an issue in team competitions, especially when things aren’t going well, and recently it’s been bubbling over to the point of dysfunction.

I would think the phone calls to those not chosen....  That call to Jordan, especially.

It so happens that I forgot to mention Jordan in Friday's post.  As you'll see below, he's got his supporters still...  Even though he was way down in the points standing (so much for those touting his second half play) and his decent play in Korea was followed by more of the desultory type in Japan and China.  But, and here's where it does get tricky, he was second in SG: Putting for last season, so if you think you need a good putter....

Then they segue to the bottom line:

2. Speaking of the captain’s picks, who should he select to round out his team? 

Sens: Finau, Fowler, Woodland and himself. 

Dethier: Himself, Finau, Woodland and Fowler. I’d love to say Reed over Rickie (who hasn’t played since the Tour Championship) but I think he forfeited his right to the benefit of the doubt after last year’s Ryder Cup. 

Bamberger: And in this order: Tiger, Fowler, Woodland, Spieth. Yes, Spieth. And it will do for Spieth what Greg Norman’s selection of Adam Scott, in 2009, did for the future Masters champion. 

Kerr-Dineen: Tiger (obviously), Woodland, Finau, Reed. Let’s give Patrick a chance to redeem himself. 

Shipnuck: His own self and Woodland for sure. Tiger was on the Ryder Cup Task Force so if he’s using this Prez Cup to build for the other Cup, he should pick Reed and Spieth. The former needs to be reintegrated into the team room and the latter needs a spark and confidence boost, as Scott got in 2009. Or, think really long-term and pick Matt Wolff and Collin Morikawa.

I do love that bit about reintegrating Patrick into the team room....  The man has spent his whole life proving that he doesn't play well with others, so good luck there....

I gave you my thoughts on Friday, but do bear in mind that he might get a mulligan down the road, if Brooks is unable to play.  But Alan's point about Jordan make sme realiz ehow little we know about Tiger's motives.  Is he all-in to win in December, or is it all part of that long-term plan to remake our Ryder Cup efforts.  You know, that plan that reaped such impressive dividends in Paris.

I'll leave you there and we can dive back in tomorrow.