I hope you enjoyed your off-season, because it's warp speed from here to Labor Day. Not that I actually recommend paying much attention until about mid-March.
There's fresh snow, so I won't be keeping you here too long....
The Plantation Mystery - For the first time in this decade, I'll let Geoff explain:
For whatever reason—climate change altering wind patters, thatch build-up causing balls to run less or players simply not using the ground like they used to—Kapalua’sPlantation course grew increasingly less interesting to watch over the last decade. Granted, it’s peak in 2000 with this PGA Tour epic duel will always be difficult to top…
Since we have only twelve years to live, a decrease in run-out on this golf course might seem a trifling matter. Of course, I'm so old I can remember back to 2000 (Shack has the highlight video) when the science was settled.
Here's another take:
The PGA Tour players in this week’s Sentry Tournament of Champions are in for a firm,fast and bouncy experience, the result of a nine-month renovation project to Kapalua’s Plantation Course that restored much of the original intent of designers Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw.
The debut course of that now-famous design duo opened in 1991, playing some 400 feet up the side of a mountain in Maui, Hawaii. The coastal course features wide fairways and dramatic slopes, with long views over Honolua and Mokuleia bays. The course has become a staple of the PGA Tour, blasting snow-bound golfers back on the mainland with views of sunshine, tropical breezes and the occasional breaching whale.
The funniest part remains that folks don't really understand why it plays so much softer in recent years.
As noted, this was the first design of the Coore-Crenshaw partnership, on a sight pretty much nobody could figure out how to build a golf course.
I don't want to get your hopes up, but....
At the third hole, Johnson, who has won twice at Kapalua, in 2013 and 2018, was used to hitting wedge into the green. A tee 40 yards farther back establishes a landing area that is slightly uphill. As a result, Johnson needed a 6-iron to reach the putting surface, and that was in the face of a mere half-club wind. Thirty yards added to the short, uphill par-4 10th should yield a similar effect.
I have been reliably informed that DJ hasn't hit a six-iron into a Par-4 since the Carter Administration.
Worth tuning in for sure, at least until the football on Saturday.
On A Related Note - Remember that bit about where Tour players would choose for their final rounds? It so happens they asked a follow up:
Paul Azinger
“I would hire Gil Hanse. He has an incredible feel and sense of what is technically sound and visually pleasing. I love his personality and I think he’d be easy to work with.”
Gil would be my choice for a restoration, because he's proven that he can check his ego at the door.
Aaron Baddeley
“I like Coore-Crenshaw. They don’t move too much dirt. They let the ground dictate the design.”
A great answer, though of course not every proposed property dictates an interesting golf course. As Pete Dye said, minimal land requires maximal architecture.
I'm perfectly fine with the distinction this guy makes:
Patrick Cantlay
“Alister Mackenzie would be my dead guy. Coore-Crenshaw among the living.”
Hmmm...He is just off playing Royal Melbourne, so no need to harsh his mellow. But I do hope he doesn't consider Augusta National to be a Mackenzie, because the Good Doctor wouldn't recognize it.
But this has to be the best answer, it being so on-brand:
Bryson DeChambeau
“It’s me. I’ve got so many great ideas. I can’t wait to start showing them in the next five years.”
Is there a clown face involved?
No Glitches So Far - How's that new handicap system working out for you? I think the powers that be have done that which they always do, made it unnecessarily complicated in search of a questionable objective. Because there really wasn't much wrong with the old system...
Dean Knuth has some serious qualms, about which I don't have the bandwidth this morning to absorb. Dean is, or was, The Pope of Slope, so his concerns should be our concerns:
What does not make sense, though, is applying the par adjustment throughout the rest of the world, in particular to the U.S., where it creates an assortment of issues. Let’s start with the fact that par is hardly the most reliable measure of course difficulty (that would be course rating). Almost any golfer can list two courses that are both par 72s but vary greatly in how tough they play. Differences in length, in obstacles, in penalty areas, make one drastically harder than another even when they have the same par. Par as a metric, then, is somewhat arbitrary. It’s why course architect Tom Doak, among others, have advocated an “Abandon Par” ideology, saying that it has become meaningless to tour pros and other golfers. Maybe you don’t want to go that far, but calculating a handicap around a less reliable measure of difficulty inherently makes for a less equitable system.
Where this issue becomes noticeable is how the new formula changes course handicap values from tee to tee as you compare the WHS to the USGA system at any course. For example, where once a course handicap was a 12 from the back and middle tees, and an 11 from the front, under the new WHS calculations there will be much larger variations—as many as 18 shots in some instances—between tees. Part of the reason for this is that during the calculation, an approximation is being approximated again by adding Course Rating minus Par, creating an imperfect “over-spreading” of the course handicaps. Golfers moving to longer tees will think this is a logical change (they’ll be getting more strokes). Golfers playing shorter tees won’t be so happy.
I'm sorry, but my eyes are glazing over... Dean does get to some of my more immediate concerns as well:
There are other changes with the WHS that cause me concerns. Providing daily handicap updates will create logistical nightmares for handicap committees at courses. Also, the new Playing Conditions Calculation that aims to account for unusual weather on daily scores sounds good, but what happens in instances when the weather is great in the morning but bad in the afternoon? Tournament score monitoring is disappointingly weakened in this new process. And the use of net double bogey as a maximum hole score is better than what that it replaces but also has faults. For golfers to apply it manually is complex—you have to know where you’re getting shots and that will vary from each set of tees—and will lead to players guessing or not applying it at all.
It's that last bit that strikes me as the bit that will ensure mayhem, but none of this actually strikes me as worth the effort.
The Year Ahead - If you've read Geoff's April Fool's Day posts, his 2020 predictions have to be worth considering. His lede will shock exactly no one:
Distance Report Delayed Again – After PGA Tour distance averages show a one-yard decline through the first four weeks of 2020, the USGA and R&A decide (again) to delaytheir highly-anticipated distance insights study. “This year’s slight drop in no way means are players are less athletic, it should be noted,” Tweeted Commissioner Jay Monahan. “We praise the governing bodies for recognizing that the game is thriving and growing, especially with a younger demographic drawn to the aspirational joys of annually spending $550 on a driver to gain five yards off the tee.”
Perhaps. Though I could see them releasing another BS report in front of a Mission Accomplished banner as well.
Load Management - A crowded schedule means the dreaded NBA phrase du jour of 2019 will come to golf in 2020. Brooks Koepka and Tiger Woods open as 2-1 favorites as the most likely to employ the phrase. Bryson DeChambeau, opens at a surprising 6-1. Explains oddsmaker Jeff Sherman, “Load management to Bryson is what ‘growing the game’ is to most players.”
But I had been reliably informed that Bryson was focused exclusively on his course design business?
Or this:
DeChambeau Admits He Bulked Up Too Much - After not breaking 70 on the entire West Coast Swing, Bryson DeChambeau reluctantly admits his 30-pound off-season bulk-up has made a mess of his game. “The idea was right, but the type of proteins my team chose were all wrong,” DeChambeau said after firing his nutritionist, physio, West Coast chef, Trackman-carrier and upper-body masseuse. “In order to lose the pesky muscle, DeChambeau will skip the Florida swing and restrict his exercise to walks from the couch to his kitchen, where his new chef will feed him a protein-free diet.
What could go wrong?
Haven't we suffered enough?
Live Under Par Survives Another Year. The PGA Tour’s new CMO issues a full review of the most ridiculed slogan in all of slogandom. Rumored internal replacements emerge, including Fields Have Never Been Deeper, These Guys Are 18-49 Demo-Friendly Jocks, Never Laying Up From A Barstool, and finally, Chicks Dig Long, Dimpled (Golf) Balls. Said an internal source, “we still have a lot of Live Under Par T’s to move at this year’s Players before we can move forward with a new one.”
To me, 2019 was a bit of a kidney stone of a year. Yeah, Tiger, but what else will we want to remember a decade from now? Dylan Dethier, who isn't old enough to know much history, is quite the optimist:
5 reasons why golf will be even better in 2020 than it was in 2019
The soft bigotry of low expectations, for sure. So, whatcha got?
1. TIGER IS BACK — LIKE, ALL THE WAY BACK!
Look, last year’s Masters will go down as one of the biggest moments in golf history — I’m not here to tell you the 2020 edition will somehow outdo that. But let’s think of what 2020 could hold for Tiger Woods. The man just turned 44, which means time allegedly isn’t on his side. But he just looked unbeatable at the Presidents Cup, impressive at the Hero World Challenge and in complete control at the Zozo Championship. In 2020 we’ll watch him defend his Masters title, seek out record-breaking win No. 83 and continue the chase for 18 major titles. Somehow, none of these seem like impossible tasks. Add onto that the possibility of Tiger playing his way into the Olympics and/or the Ryder Cup and we’re talking about an all-time year for Woods-watching.
Dylan, I recommend a few slow, deep breaths....
Look, I agree that the quality of Tiger's golf in Japan and Oz was a revelation. But that Saturday at the Prez Cup should serve as a flashing red light for all of us, as we simply can't know what his body will allow. Expect nothing, and we might have a fun surprise or two. Not that I love the venues, and the PGA of America has done him no favors....
2. THE U.S. IS LOOKING FOR RYDER CUP REVENGE
Remember a couple of weeks ago, when we were reminded how fun it is to watch passionate team match-play golf? Well, that was just the Presidents Cup, and it was happening most of the way around the world. The Ryder Cup is coming to Wisconsin in September and the American side is in desperate need of revenge after a 17.5-10.5 trouncing at the hands of Europe in Paris in 2018. The intrigue of who will make the U.S. team is always worth the price of admission, and the performance of the Internationals in Melbourne should remind us that in this format, there’s no such thing as a sure thing. We’ve got a big circle around Whistling Straits on our calendar.
Well, duh! Forget revenge, the U.S. just needs to blow up that Task Force. seriously, if the purpose of your hostile takeover of the event is to throw Phil out there in alternate shot, maybe you should rethink everything.
That said, the U.S. is surely capable of winning a home game.... Right?
3. NELLY KORDA IS GUNNING FOR THE TOP
Fans of American women’s golf have been on the lookout for their next breakout star, and in 2019 Nelly Korda staked a compelling claim to that title. She began 2019 with a win in Australia and never looked back, winning three times and racking up top finishes as she jumped from No. 23 in the world to a year-end rank of No. 3. Oh yeah, and she’s just 21 years old. In 2020, Korda will be gunning for the top spot in the Rolex Rankings, but she’ll have her work cut out for her. While S.H. Park (6.77 points) is within striking distance of Korda (6.53), Jin Young Ko has established herself as the unquestioned No. 1 player in the world with 9.45 points. No American has reached the top of the rankings since Stacy Lewis in 2014; watching the best in the world battle it out for that coveted title will be worth the price of admission.
perhaps for the twelve people that actually watch women's golf. But remind me, whatever happened to the Lexi Thompson era?
4. IT’S ON BETWEEN BROOKS AND RORY
By the end of 2019, two players had separated themselves from the rest of the PGA Tour. Brooks Koepka and Rory McIlroy traded blows all year long, with Koepka winning the lion’s share until the season-ending Tour Championship, where McIlroy stared him down and took home $15 million in the process. Koepka’s still holding on to the top spot in the World Ranking — and has made it clear he’s not interested in any action in his rearview mirror — but McIlroy is very much interested in chasing down the man ahead of him. Here’s hoping for more weekend showdowns in 2020. Of course, there are a few other players who might have something to say about this, like misters Rahm, Thomas, Johnson or Woods. But Brooks-Rory feels, for now, like the main event.
That's nice, but it does require Rory to summon the good stuff when it matter most.... Yanno, come to think of it, Augusta would be a good time to test this hypothesis.
5. IT’S AN OLYMPIC YEAR!
This may be me, a lifelong Olympics nerd, speaking on behalf of the game of golf, but this feels like the year we begin to feel proper Olympic cheer. Apathy and Zika kept top players away from Rio four years back; besides Olympics grinch Adam Scott, it sounds like the world’s best will be gunning for Tokyo this summer. Qualifying for the U.S. men’s team — only four golfers deep — will be as hard as anything in the sport, save for perhaps the South Korean women’s team. Brooks Koepka, Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson, Tiger Woods, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, etc., who’s getting left out?
I'm very happy for you, Dylan, but what's in it for the rest of us? In fact, there's this little follow-up paragraph...
Of course, it’s hard for me to write about the Olympics without a mention that it remains a damn shame there’s no team, or match play, or mixed-gender element to the action in Tokyo, and that having another 72-hole stroke-play event seems like a mega-miss, but there will be time for that. It’s the start of a new year, after all. Not a bogey on the scorecard yet.
So, yet another dreary 72-hole stroke play event, but at least this one features a comically weak field, so we've got that going for us.
I'm going to leave you there. Enjoy the golf in prime time this evening.
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