Monday, February 1, 2021

Weekend Wrap

It's a big day here at Unplayable Lies, my first post of the winter from Western HQ.

I was treated to 9" of fresh stuff my first day on skis Saturday, which was too much, too soon for a guy with no sea legs.  But it's good to finally be here, and to catch up with my ski buddies.  

But, I know what you want to talk about this morning...

The C-Word - The week was intended to wet your whistle for the U.S. Open in June, though that agenda got hijacked on the 10th hole on Saturday.  Let's ease our way in with this game story from Golf Digest:

Reed stirred controversy at the 10th hole on Saturday when he declared an embedded lie in the rough despite his ball bouncing to that spot. So when he found the rough again at 10 on Sunday from a perfect lie in the fairway, there were probably some who believed that a sour portion of
golf karma would be served.

But that’s the fascinating thing about Reed: He has a remarkable ability to cancel the noise and excel under the kind of pressure that turns rocks into diamonds. That’s why he’s been “Captain America” in the Ryder Cup. Why he won his first major at the 2018 Masters despite the chatter that week of his estrangement from his parents, who watched the final round just miles away from their home in Augusta.

And he did it again at Torrey Pines, which certainly played like a major, with Reed scoring only six under for three rounds on the South after opening the tournament with a 64 on the North Course. (Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate finished at one under for four rounds in the 2008 U.S. Open here.)

At No. 10 on Sunday, with Reed leading by one shot over Viktor Hovland, it could have all unraveled when he was short-sided over the back of the green, 18 feet behind the flagstick. You’ve got to figure the most sarcastically uttered line among viewers at that point was: “Plugged lie?” But Reed gazed down at where the ball appeared to be—it couldn’t be picked up by the cameras—set up, and fashioned a magnificent pitch that settled three feet from the cup for a par save.

Yes, and I find that remarkable ability to be remarkably annoying...

So, what do we think of Captain America?  Should he be forced to wear a scarlet "C" when competing?  I think the preponderance of the evidence supports the view that Patrick is a cheater, though it's often the reaction of others that holds the most interest.  And, while it's a matter of emphasis and argument whether he deserves the cheater label, there's little doubt that he's a world-class a*****e, which may well be the larger crime.

So, a brief precis of the incident:

The story started on the par-4 10th hole on the South Course at Torrey Pines, where Reed hooked
his second shot left and short of the green. Reed said his ball embedded upon impact. CBS’ broadcast showed it take one bounce and nestle into the rough.

In his post-round interviews, Reed said he asked the hole volunteer, his two playing partners, Will Gordon and Robby Shelton, and the grouping’s three caddies if they had seen the ball bounce, and Reed said they all said no. At that point, as allowed under Rule 16.4, he lifted the ball to check whether it was embedded, he determined it was, and he called for a Rules official to make sure.

Reed would twice tell Brad Fabel, a PGA Tour senior tournament official, that the ball did not bounce. Fabel checked an indentation, also determined the ball had embedded and allowed Reed to take relief. He would go on to par the hole, and he’s tied for the lead entering the final round.

To me, Reed's focus on whether the ball bounced is immediately suspicious, because most of us only look to see if our ball is embedded after, you know, seeing that our ball is embedded....I know it was soft, but he hadn't even reached his ball before he threw out the E-word....

What if a fan said it bounced? Spectators are not at the Farmers, as they haven’t been at most tournaments during the pandemic. Reed said if “one fan said they saw it bounce, I never would have had to put a tee down and even check to see if it was embedded.”

“The only thing I would have done differently, if we saw the ball bounce or if someone said the ball bounced, then I never would have marked the golf ball,” Reed said in his press conference. “You would have just played as it lies. You know when the ball bounces, it’s almost impossible for it to break the plane and so therefore, when that happens, anytime you see the ball bounce, you just play it as it lies. But since you have three players, three caddies and a volunteer that is probably from me to you that didn’t see the ball bounce, then you obviously are going to go off of that.” 

Ummm, Patrick, that playing it as it lies thing is such a good idea, you might want to give it a try one of these days... 

The incidents become all the more grating because of nonsense like this:

After his round, Reed was called into the scoring tent and watched a replay of the incident with senior tournament director John Mutch. Reed told Balionis that Mutch told him that “what just transpired was textbook.”

Textbook?  Remember that after the Hero World incident, we had the involved rules official offering a testimonial to the character of PReed, a point one might think beyond the scope of the the man's job description.  To belabor that, it seems that the Tour's rules officials are in the business of protecting the brand of players, something I would expect Bryson to support.  The rest of us?

But, while providing a detailed character reference, at no point does a Tour official note that no one besides Patrick saw the ball in situ.  Isn't that rather the point?  It's fine to call in a rules official, but why wouldn't you at least ask one of your playing partners to look at the ball before putting your fat paws on it?  

The end result seems to this observer pretty pathetic.  We have a rules official touching the ground, insisting that he felt a crater, that we all know couldn't have been caused by that ball after it bounced.  To me, Patrick played the official, whom I would expect to be pretty irate at being used.  Instead, he's offering encomiums as to the character of a serial offender...  If that's your textbook, perhaps it needs a rewrite?

So, what did we think of CBS' performance with this hot mess?  Well, pretty good, actually, though it was an interesting week to roll out the addition of a rules official on the broadcast.  Like Geoff, I found him an embarrassment:

So even with an image-killing incident at the 2019 Hero World Challenge and other run-ins with lie improvement, Captain America has resumed his assault on the most important rule of all: playing the ball as it lies.

Sadly, his 2021 Farmers Insurance Open third round actions were not denounced by the PGA Tour in any way. Official Ken Tackett, who has stood down Bryson DeChambeau’s more absurd relief requests, was debuting in a new role for CBS that will see multiple rules staffers sit in to explain situations. Just a half hour into the new role he was put to a test and mopped up for Reed, sadly. In his defense, Tackett’s paycheck comes from the players. He technically works for Patrick Reed and a cult of personality based in Florida that believes PGA Tour golfers are above golf’s rules. Still, that Tackett could not call out Reed’s premature touching of his ball despite the incredulous reactions of CBS’s broadcast team, has a nefarious aging very poorly.

OK, not exactly sure what he was going for with that last sentence, but at no point, even on Sunday, would Tackett admit that they got it completely wrong.  I've got a few more points to make, but shall we dive into the Tour Confidential panel?

1. Patrick Reed was embroiled in another Rules controversy during the third round of the Farmers Insurance (which he went on to win by five strokes). Reed hit his second shot on the par-4 10th hole, his ball took a bounce and it settled into the rough. Reed said he and his group did not see the bounce, he and a Rules official said he had an embedded ball, and he took a drop. Also in the third round, Rory McIlroy encountered a near-identical situation on the par-5 18th, except he didn’t call for an official. On Sunday, senior tournament director John Mutch said: “We’re completely comfortable with both situations and what happened yesterday.” Lots to unpack here, but we’ll ask it simply — are you comfortable with both situations? Should the PGA Tour have handled this in any way differently?

Sean Zak: The only thing I’m uncomfortable with is how quickly Reed seemed to grab his ball — and not gingerly at all — and discard it. He was hasty, bottom line. He acted within the rules and to his best knowledge at the time. Should he have called over an official before setting it aside? I think so. Does he have to? Not under the rule. Should video be used quickly to determine if it bounced? That’s asking for more out of cameramen and the tournament officials. I think this is really just a tricky situation that played out much differently for those on their couches than the players inside the ropes.

Gee, Sean, the guy quite obviously got relief for a ball that wasn't plugged, something we should all be uncomfortable with, no?  We all understand that, in a game played out in nature, the players won't always get it right.  But we shouldn't ever get comfortable with a process that yields a bad result, and I have no problem including Rory here.

Josh Sens: Based on what those on hand said they saw in the moment — and what we watched on video — there’s no evidence that Reed violated the letter of the law, so I’m not sure how the Tour could have ruled differently (though it did make for an interesting contrast to have rules officials defending Reed even as the CBS crew were raising their eyebrow, and their concerns). Reed is the one who definitely could have done something differently, and that’s the most striking aspect of this incident to me: that despite past experiences and all the grief he’s gotten, he didn’t seem the least bit concerned about appearances. “The optics aren’t good,” Jim Nantz said during the broadcast. Clearly, bad optics didn’t faze Reed in the slightest.

Dylan Dethier: No, I’m not quite comfortable with either situation — it’s clear that both players should have acted more carefully, given each player’s ball bounced before allegedly “plugging.” But I know that players are always going to have to officiate themselves, to an extent. I’d have liked to see both players call over another player for a second opinion.

Alan Bastable: It wasn’t the quick-grab that was so much a problem for Reed as was the quick-grab followed by summoning a rules official. If he was so certain that the ball was embedded — a la Rory on 18 — he should have taken his drop and played on. Calling in an official muddied the whole episode. How could the ref be expected to make a call on a ball that had been moved from its original spot? The Tour’s damage-control response was also super-telling. On Saturday evening, a story appeared on the Tour’s website with the headline “Reed’s drop on 10 declared ‘textbook’ by rules official.” How is lifting a ball before calling in an official “textbook”? Players have done far worse, sure, but it was decidedly not a model execution.

James Colgan: In a vacuum, I’m totally comfortable with both drops. The conditions were obviously soggy and both players acted within the rules. That’s all we ask of pros, right? Outside a vacuum … it’s murkier. Without relitigating Reed’s past, it’s easy to understand why so many golf fans saw his actions as a smoking gun. I happen to think there was no overt intent on his part to subjugate the rules, but it does raise the question: why are we having Patrick Reed rules discussions so frequently? I’m uncomfortable with what that question implies, and I’m uncomfortable knowing many of the powers that be feel no pressure to see these conversations end.

 The TC gang takes on this issue, about which I am ambivalent:

2. Reed, in his press conference on Saturday, said: “The only thing I would have done differently, if we saw the ball bounce or if someone said the ball bounced, then I never would have marked the golf ball. You would have just played as it lies. You know when the ball bounces, it’s almost impossible for it to break the plane and so therefore, when that happens, anytime you see the ball bounce, you just play it as it lies. But since you have three players, three caddies and a volunteer that is probably from me to you that didn’t see the ball bounce, then you obviously are going to go off of that.” Should the Tour employ video replay in these situations, especially without fans on site?

Zak: I don’t think so. It would add another layer of importance on outside forces, and would ask for quick judgement from officials. We’ve seen what slo-mo, instant replay can do for the sport at its worst. This feels like the juice wouldn’t be worth the squeeze.

Sens: Only if it could be done with dispatch, and all players in every position were subject to the same degree of scrutiny. But even then, we’d still be left with that often hazy matter of “intent.”

Dethier: I think when they’re looking at the footage anyway, it makes sense to communicate what they’re seeing to the officials on the ground in real time to avoid an improper ruling. In this case, that would mean saying, “Yo, we saw it bounce! It didn’t plug!” But it would be too bulky to rely on video for every ruling — for now, at least.

Bastable: The Tour might not have a choice. With gambling becoming an integral piece of the Tour’s business model, getting it right is going to become more essential than ever — just as is the case with the NFL and MLB and other leagues that employ replay. Imagine if you had placed a head-to-head wager against Reed on Saturday — how would you feel if he single-handedly made a call on a ruling like that?

Colgan: I loathe the replay system in other professional sports. Loathe it. It’s clunky, time-consuming and inconsistent. Bringing it to golf is an awful, terrible idea. But it might be better than relying solely upon the vision of septuagenarian volunteers.

Hold that thought about gambling, which was your humble blogger's immediate reaction...  None of like replay, though none of us like bad rulings....  

Let me try to cover a couple of other aspects to this story.  First, I don't much like what the CBS broadcast has evolved into, but kudos to their on-air talent for not taking a powder:

Standing ovation for CBS. They absolutely did not let Tackett off the hook, revisited the video, asked probing questions, and questioned him when the answers were clearly ridiculous. Nantz, Faldo, all exceptional. Amanda's questions to Reed were the right questions. Wild stuff.

I quite agree.  It would have been easy to cave to Tackett and the Tour's desire to bury this, but they actually made it clear they didn't like what they saw.

Next, another tweet:

I don't think Rory is a cheater, but I have personally seen behavior from him that deserves calling out.  Specifically, in an incident I now wish I had better recall of, I saw him lie to a rules official as to how he would play a shot.  How do I know he lied?  Because he was denied relief, and then didn't play the shot as he indicated he would....  

But, yes, we react differently because of who is involved, a man with a long, tortured history of difficulty with the most basic rule of golf, that we play the ball as it lies.  So, did you catch the X-man's reaction?  It was interesting, for sure:

Q. Did you have a chance to see what happened with Patrick Reed yesterday?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Not ‑‑ I didn't search for the videos, I just have heard talk amongst the boys out here.

Q. Have you ever ran into a situation like that on the golf course?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I would not put myself and create a situation like that. That's kind of ‑‑ I wouldn't. If my ball's embedded, I usually will wait and call someone and kind of wait until everyone's on the same page, wait to look at video. So I try to avoid situations like that just for that reason.

Q. Just to be clear, you wouldn't have picked the ball up?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: No. I would wait for an official. You can put a tee in the ground and check your ball. I mean, he did everything by the book according to the official and everyone stood by there. Obviously the talk amongst the boys isn't great, I guess, but he's protected by the Tour and that's all that matters, I guess.

I'm thinking that Xander might be taking a call from a 904 area code...

Interesting that Xander thinks Patrick is protected by the Tour, and I'm quite shocked that he said it out loud.  Happy, mind you, but quite shocked...  I'm not sure that's quite accurate, as it seems the Tour is mostly interested in avoiding any rules or behavior-related scandals, think DJ and his famous jet-ski injury.  But if the Tour is in the business of protecting the brand of its members, then that leaves it open to manipulation by the least honest among those members....  So, perhaps it's a distinction lacking much of a difference.

But, remember that famous sand moved at the Hero World Challenge?  As I'm sure you'll recall, that event was the week before the President's Cup, and we were treated to the off-putting spectacle of that team rallying around Patrick and defending him against the cheating allegations.  I know you'll be shocked, but Xander was on that team, and didn't have much to say about the man.  So, X-man, when you accuse the Tour of protecting Patrick, I assume you recognize your own culpability therein? 

Let me just add that that Hero World bit is far from the worst thing we've seen Patrick do.  That might well be this:

One last bit, and then I feel like I need to take a shower...  So, Eamon Lynch had this Saturday night, connecting the dots as I referenced above:

Lynch: Angry about Patrick Reed's rules interpretation? Imagine if you had a bet on it.

 Let your heart be light, as we have this vis Geoff:

Jay, are you taking notes?  If you wanted the Tour to look like a Mickey Mouse operation, what would you do differently?

Udder Stuff -  Before leaving Torrey, a couple of other bits from the TC panel that should have alarm bells ringing in Ponte Vedra Beach.  First, get a load of this TC panel query:

4. The Reed affair took much of the air out of the other weekend storylines at Torrey Pines. What was the second-biggest story that fans might have missed?

There was no other story, and that really is quite the issue...

Zak: I’ll go with Tony Finau, again having a chance to do something, and ultimately not doing much. Seriously, he shot 69 and it probably could have been a 66. But a horrible three-putt down the stretch and leaving his go-for-it approach into 18 short were two winning moments where he didn’t make winning strokes. It’s a trend. We keep talking about it, and will keep talking about it, until he closes.

Sens: Rory. Another Sunday stumble after starting the day right in the mix.

Bastable: Sure, Finau, Rory, both good talking points. Also, should we already anoint Rahm (T2) as the 2021 U.S. Open champion? But only one topic will be discussed at virtual water coolers Monday morning, and that’s P. Reed. What if he had won by only one stroke. Then what?

Dethier: A feel-good story: Francesco Molinari! He shot a Sunday 66 (bested by one player) to notch his second consecutive top 10. That would be no big deal, but Molinari’s most recent top 10 before that was at the 2019 Masters, when he splashed a couple of crucial shots down the stretch. Onward, Francesco!

Colgan: A sneaky Sunday story was Xander Schauffele’s late run to finish T2. He’s from San Diego but told me a week ago he’s never felt comfortable playing at Torrey. Maybe he figured something out this week. Wouldn’t that be a fitting setting for a major championship breakthrough come June?

See, I warned you...

And, if there was another story from the week, it would have to be this one.  The Tour fortunately having Reed distract us from this really crazy bit:

5. During the first round of the Farmers, preferred lies were in play despite near-perfect conditions. The PGA Tour made the ruling because the tournament was being played on two courses for the first two rounds, and bad weather was expected (and arrived) on Friday. Did the Tour make the right move?

I totally get it.  The Tour's leadership is showing their woke bona fides, and are going to ensure that each event is a safe space for the players....  But really, how do you hold Reed to account for not playing the ball as he finds it, when the Tour itself doesn't?

Zak: No. Not at all. Weather changes! Storm fronts dissipate! These courses aren’t so different that rain would make scoring on one more difficult than the other. I am still puzzled by that ruling, and think the R&A must have been cackling overseas.

Sens: Agreed. The Tour out-thought itself in that decision. You can’t legislate for every variable. That one should have been left alone.

Bastable: Weird call for sure. If they employed that practice at British Opens, every second round would be LCP. The beauty/madness of golf is what the course — and the conditions — bring you on a given day. Some days you luck out, other days not, and over time it all evens out. Tourney organizers shouldn’t meddle with that.

Dethier: I think this one’s unanimous. This made no sense.

Colgan: It hailed in San Diego and it was the second-weirdest weather-related story this week. Probably not a good sign for the Tour.

I can't even understand the case for it, unless you're gonna make me whole for the way the wind picked up on the sixteenth tee...  Seriously, we play an outdoor game, and there's always been some luck involved in the weather.

But the Tour officials seem to have decided that, if Friday's weather turned harsh as predicted, that somehow playing the harder South course with the ball down on Thursday would be unfair?  WTF?  Why not let them play lift, clean and cheat every day, just to be certain that there's no luck at all involved.  Perhaps the biggest loss in Patrickgate is that this curious decision hasn't generated the vitriol it deserves...

I'm going to release you to begin your week, and we'll move onto other subjects in the next few days.

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