In which your humble blogger pretends to care about the FedEx Cup playoffs.... Hey, I didn't say it would be a convincing performance, just that I would try.
Live Under Par, At Least While You Can - Really, I'm going to play this straight, leading with this infomercial from Golfweek:
2020 FedEx Cup Playoff Guide: Who's in, who's out, how does it work, where is it played
How does it work? I think there's a superfluous word, the more profound question being does it work?
The PGA Tour season has felt disjointed thanks to a prolonged break due to the coronavirus pandemic, but after Jim Herman won the Wyndham Championship on Sunday, the 2019-20 regular season concluded.
Last year, Patrick Reed won the first event in the re-formatted FedEx Cup playoffs, the Northern Trust at Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City, New Jersey. This year, the event has picked up stakes and moved north on I-95, and now TPC Boston is hosting the first round of the 2020 postseason.
The playoffs will look and sound different this year because there will be no fans lining the fairways at the tournaments, but there are millions of dollars on the line every week.Here is everything you need to know about the playoffs and how the next three weeks will work.
It is very much an infomercial, so it seems unsporting to be critical. But discredited seems apter than disjointed.
And don't forget this little bit of madness that they rolled out last year:
Round 3 – The Tour Championship
The PGA Tour’s season-ending event will once again take place at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. Thirty players will qualify for the event, and there will be no cut, but the Tour Championship will have a unique start.
After the conclusion of the BMW Championship, the golfer ranked No. 1 on the FedEx Cup point list will start the Tour Championship with a score of -10, a reward for accumulating the most points throughout the season.
Based on where the other players rank on the point list, they will start between two and 10 shots behind the leader.
leading to this, perhaps the oddest statement ever made about a golf tournament:
Once players are assigned their starting scores and play begins at the Tour Championship, FedEx Cup points become meaningless.
Once players are assigned their starting scores? Just let that rattle around in your head for a while... I assure you it doesn't get any better.
One still needs to be in it to win it, so this might be of interest:
5 surprising golfers missing from this year’s FedEx Cup Playoffs
Surprising perhaps, but only if you've been self-quarantined. On Mars:
2. Charl Schwartzel
I can’t think of anyone else on the PGA Tour who notched two top-5 finishes in 2020 and didn’t
make the playoffs, but Charl Schwartzel did just that when he missed the cut at the Wyndham to fall from No. 125 to 128 in the standings.
The actual act of seeing Schwartzel is also particularly top-of-mind because he cut such a distinct figure at the 3M Open, where he showed up with a cowboy/sun hat that emitted some serious retro vibes.
Schwartzel finished T3 at the 3M, and he finished T5 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am this winter. But it’s been more famine than feast the rest of the way, with seven missed cuts in his other 10 PGA Tour starts this season. Here’s hoping for good health and superior sun protection for Schwartzel when the Tour begins anew.
Well, the only relevance Charl has provided this year is that his 2011 Masters win was the most commonly cited comparison for the rugby-scrum finish at Harding Park.
As for this guy, I am simply relieved to have him leave town without another incident:
1. Sergio Garcia
The most surprising name to find below the 125 line is that of Sergio Garcia, the seemingly ageless Spaniard who remains No. 43 in the world but just No. 135 in the FedEx Cup after a T66 at the Wyndham this week.
Garcia’s lackluster season finish can be attributed to a few things. For one, he played just 12 qualifying events. For another, some of his best recent play has come across the pond, including five top-10s and a victory in his European Tour starts since last year’s FedEx Cup Playoffs.
Overall, Garcia just hasn’t contended enough to rack up those points. He’s made plenty of weekends, surviving 10 of 12 PGA Tour cuts, but logged just one top-30 finish: a T5 at the RBC Heritage.
Interestingly, Garcia remains among the Tour’s best drivers, ranking 3rd in strokes gained off the tee and 6th in strokes gained tee-to-green. He was above average around the greens, too — until he got onto the greens themselves. His rank of 202 in strokes gained putting beat just nine players.
One thing is for sure: We’ll see plenty more of Sergio Garcia — as well as the other names on this list — just not in the next few weeks.
There is an interesting question buried herein. When Sergio broke through and won his Masters, it was assumed by most that that would "open the floodgates" for the Spaniard. The reality has been just the opposite, despite the obvious happiness in his personal life combined with that Masters, he has instead become increasingly petulant and he's played poorly and seemingly without much interest in the proceedings.
But at this point why would we be surprised?
The more interesting aspect by far is the number of players who have made the first cut, but aren't as of now qualified into the BMW. Those ranking just the wrong side of 100 includes Brooks Koepka, Jordan Spieth, Paul Casey, Brandt Snedeker and Justin Rose, among other notables. Tiger is better off thanks to ZoZo, but at No. 49 needs a high finish to revisit East Lake, as does his BFF Phil (No. 66). In theory, that provides a reason to tune in this week. In theory...
As for this one, you'll immediately recognize the over-sell:
15 oddly fascinating statistics about the FedEx Cup Playoffs
Odd perhaps, but the adjective "fascinating" has not heretofore been used to describe these proceedings...
Life in the PVB Bubble - Shack has some interesting links up as relate to the Tour's operations and finances, and we'll do our best to make sense of the sketchy details. He links to this Alex Miceli piece on those layoffs from the Tour's staff:
Lost amid the coverage last week of the PGA Championship in San Francisco were dozens oflayoffs at PGA Tour headquarters across the country in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.
According to sources, 40-50 staffers among nine departments at the PGA Tour had their jobs eliminated as a cost-cutting move because of reductions in revenue related to the global coronavirus pandemic.
Commissioner Jay Monahan, in a video address to his staff, said the negative impact on revenue without spectators and hospitality income since play resumed in early June and projected through the end of the year will total more than $90 million.
At the same time, the Tour must shoulder the unbudgeted expense of implementing a health-and-safety program, which further erodes the bottom line.
I don't remember when they released that news, but my first reaction to this item is sadness that this is one business that can't avail itself of the traditional Friday afternoon bad news dump, because they'd be stepping on their own product.
Alex has some more context for us:
The PGA Tour, with more than 1,000 employees worldwide, is a big business, with the primary job of providing playing opportunities for its members, e.g., the guys whom you watch on TV.
Within days of the Tour’s suspension of play March 12, Monahan agreed to forgo his salary, which was $3.9 million, including bonuses and incentives in the Tour’s latest available tax filing, from 2017. Other top officials took salary cuts, too, but that fiscal discipline was not enough to offset the massive drop in income. Thus, as with any chief executive at a big company, Monahan needed to take further reductions in expenses. The Tour reportedly did not accept federal money under the Paycheck Protection Program that was designed as a direct incentive for businesses to keep workers on the payroll.
Think there's any fat in this organization? It's unclear why Miceli is citing those 2017 numbers, when Geoff had no problem finding the 2018 updates:
The 2018 numbers also show a jump in Monahan’s salary from the $3.9 million number cited by Miceli to $6.73 million. Other compensation figures impossible to ignore.
I think we can all agree that the man that created that Chainsmokers concert would be cheap at half the price.
Now we get to the irony, always my favorite part. You know how folks haven't been in their offices lately? And we're kind of wondering whether they'll ever go back? This would be an awkward time to be finishing a massive office building, no?
It would be easy for cynics to point at the massive new headquarters building under construction in Ponte Vedra Beach, which will consolidate the 17 buildings that house Tour employees, and ask why that project can’t be halted to save money.
The 187,000-square-foot, $65 million building, which is scheduled to be finished by the end of the year, was designed as an adaptive office space, with an open-concept approach that will give 700 employees a better working environment.
According to sources, a halt in construction would cost the Tour more money than it would take to finish the project.
Can you say Edifice Complex? I thought you could...
Ultimately Alex asks a question that's been very much on my mind:
So, why jettison so many employees and not reduce the tournament prize money? As at many other big companies, moving money from one area to another can be difficult. At the tour, each tournament contract spells out how much the purse will be worth, with incremental raises often part of the contract.
Even if the purses were to be reduced, any savings likely would return to the sponsor, which pays a large percentage of the prize money. But what sponsor would want to reduce a purse and potentially damage the depth and quality of the field?
I don't feel compelled to link it to those layoffs, but why are they playing for the same purses given an obvious decrease in revenues? Shack links to this reader letter that rebuts Miceli's analysis:
The 2019-20 PGA Tour season began with $375 million in prize money plus another $70 million in FedEx bonus money. Is Miceli saying that if the purses were cut 10 percent, to nearly $340 million, and the bonus pool were reduced to $60 million or so, that it would create a lesser field? That Rory McIlroy wouldn’t play in the Canadian Open because first-place money is $130,000 less than the $1.37 million that he won last year? A $45 million haircut from purses could cover 50 mid-level Tour staffers and health protocols until spectator things get back to normal.
But where Miceli is way off base is defending commissioner Jay Monahan's position on why he had to do these layoffs. Monahan states that the Tour will lose more than $90 million in revenue for the year since March. The same 2017 tax filing that Miceli used to show the $3.9 million commissioner's "foregone" salary (which, according to that tax filing, represents only a part of his total salary), the Tour's total revenue for that fiscal year was $1.47 billion. That $90 million loss of revenue represents less than 7 percent of the total revenue for that year. If you offset that $90 million loss of revenue with the $56 million in operating surplus (using the same 2017 tax filing), the Tour needs to cover only $34 million, or about 2.5 percent of total revenue. A financial officer in a business venture with $1.47 billion in total revenue should be able to carve out 2.5 percent standing on his head, without layoffs.
That last sentence is about as meaningful as this:
—Paul Johnson, EVP of International Tours, raked in $2.8 million overseeing those cash cows, the PGA Tour China, PGA Tour LatinoAmerica, PGA Tour Canada and the MacKenzie Tour.
—CTO Andy Pazdur $2.12 million.
—Korn Ferry Tour President Dan Glod made $953k. (The leading money winner on the 2018 edition of that tour was Denny McCarthy, who made $255,792.)
—Ed Moorhouse, who retired at the end of 2017, raked in more than anyone for 2018, including the Commissioner, with a whopping $7.6 million retirement gift.
Oh, the inhumanity!
Before we move on, there could well be some buried good news:
I told you some good would come from this pandemic...
This is SWK at the Wyndham:
The end of an era? The reader is encouraged to insert his own "Mashed Potatoes" or "In the Hole" joke here...
So, where will they turn for a new killer slogan? Geoff recommends they go retro:
I’m struggling to see how Live Under Par can resurface anytime soon. So grab yourself some Club Pro Guy Live Under Net Par gear and say a prayer for all the LUP merch that’s off to the landfill.
Meanwhile, sources confirm to GeoffShackelford.com that 20-year-slogan “These Guys Are Good” retired to St Augustine last year once the shock wore off. The same sources say TGAG looks to be slim, tanned and ready to resurface to appear on ad breaks during tournaments we’re already watching.
The CPG stuff I had forgotten, but was quite amusing at the time. TGAG is about the best advertising slogan one could ever imagine, so it makes perfect sense that Jay would feel compelled to put his own indelible mark on the organization.
Life During Wartime - Alan Shipnuck has a delightful feature on golf during World War II, though I think it badly misses the mark. He tries to equate our lockdown and the resulting closure of golf course in the Spring to WWII, and that is quite the stretch. Sure, a bad year of seasonal flu is just like that existential struggle of Good v. Evil, especially since Good was 4-down after six holes...
But there are moments. You know how Republican Presidents are routinely criticized for playing golf? That turns out to not be a new thing:
Golf has been woven into the collective memory of World War II since the very first moments when the U.S. was attacked at Pearl Harbor. The commander in chief of the Navy’s Pacific Fleet,the memorably named Husband E. Kimmel, was an ardent golfer, and he was getting dressed for his regular Sunday-morning game at the Fort Shafter golf course when the first bombs began raining down upon Pearl Harbor. Kimmel’s flat-footed response would become part of the lore of the Day of Infamy, and the 2001 film Pearl Harbor took the liberty of placing the admiral on the golf course — in swanky saddle shoes and a plaid vest, no less — as the attack unfolds. It was the ultimate indictment.
So, did he get his game in? This was pretty good as well:
As the U.S. immediately plunged into war, golf ’s stewards carefully framed the sport as a kind of patriotism. Shaping policy was John Kelly, the assistant director of civilian defense in charge of physical fitness and, felicitously, a member of Bala Golf Club in Philadelphia, known for his breakneck pace of play. In a letter to the USGA days after Pearl Harbor, Kelly wrote, “Eight million people will be going into the armed forces. My job is to look after the 124 million who won’t or can’t go. They can keep fit by playing golf. France was the most physically inactive country in the world and look what happened to them.”
At least he didn't call them cheese-eating surrender monkeys... So we couldn't find a pushcart available. but they had more profound supply issues:
Seven decades later, Kelly’s letter was cited in some quarters as the debate raged as to whether or not golf courses should stay open amidst shelter-in-place orders. And the past is always prologue: Just as modern Americans hoarded toilet paper in the face of Covid-19, duffers at the dawn of World War II made a run on golf balls, knowing they were sure to become scarce. On December 17, 1941, the federal Office of Price Administrations announced a rationing plan for civilian use of rubber products. The next morning, the Abercrombie & Fitch store in New York City was cleaned out of 24,000 balls — its entire inventory — and across the nation golfers similarly stocked up on the most precious of commodities. Factory-refurbished used balls became such a thing that Gene Sarazen used one in the second round of the 1942 Masters.
I don't thin Alan actually understand the effect of his piece. The comparison with an actual world war, actually only reinforces the pettiness and counter-productive measures enacted during our lockdown. Not only was it completely unnecessary to close golf courses, but given the importance of Vitamin D, it was actually harmful to people.
Sheep Thrills - A couple items on the newst course at Bandon Dunes, The Sheep Ranch. First, this Bill Coore-narrated video flyover of all 18 holes.
It's just a spectacular site, though one with unique challenges... It's the fifth full golf course at the resort, in addition to the 13-hole Par-3 Preserve and the massive Punchbowl putting green.
Bill spends a good deal of time on the Par-3 16th, which looks like this:
This woman had some success there:
BANDON, Ore. — Sheep Ranch, the once-mystical hidden layout that is now a full-fledged course, opened in June to rave reviews that already put it potentially at the top of the Bandon Dunes Resort rotation. But you can’t be legendary without some golfing lore, and SR has its first such story—achieved by a mother of two who plays about six holes a week for giggles with her girlfriends.Allison Koehnke, a 36-year-old from Salem, Ore., made the first hole-in-one of her life on Friday on the stunning, cliffside par-3 16th hole on Sheep Ranch. It was her first full round of golf she played this year. But it gets better …She did so from 102 yards with her PUTTER, swinging it as if she was punching a wedge. And still it gets better …As her ball made its way onto the green, it caromed off the golf ball of the husband of the couple with whom they were traveling and playing. Somehow, from there, it had the right trajectory to find the bottom of the cup. And finally, the topper …Allison’s husband, Drew, got it all on video with his phone, preserving the feat for them and the social media world to enjoy forever.
You'll have to click through to view it, and it's hard to make out anything the ball actually does. I was amused by her adjustment of the height of her ball on the tee, as well as the caddie's reaction at the end.
The playing of Par-3's with only a putter is not uncommon in links golf. In fact, one of golf's most famous one-shotters, the Eden hole (No.11) at the old course was criticized by C.B. Macdonald for that very fact. That didn't stop him from using it as a template, though his designs invariably do not allow the holes to be played with that club only.
You're not likely to see me tomorrow, but let's plan on spending a little time on Thursday.
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