Monday, April 19, 2021

Weekend Wrap

We've got a lot teed up for you this morning.  An interesting weekend of golf action, one in which the old geezers dominated (though, ironically, one of said geezers is all of 23 years old), as well as flare-ups of some of our game's most contentious issues....  Buckle in.

Daddy Issues - I think we can all agree that the hottest caddie on Tour made a good move by going into the family business:

It was supposed to be a short-term gig.

Stewart Cink had a caddie, after all — veteran looper Kip Henley — and his son Reagan was a busy young man. In the spring of 2020, he’d graduated from Georgia Tech. Over the summer, he got

engaged. And he had a job lined up working in flight operations with Delta Airlines.

But first, Reagan wanted to spend a couple weeks on Tour with his dad. At 47 years of age, who knew how many more seasons Stewart would have on Tour? Reagan picked up a loop at the Safeway Open, his father’s first start of the PGA Tour season.

Then they won the event.

A few weeks later, Stewart dismissed his full-time caddie.

And they're having quite the good time, or so it seems.  Perhaps too good a time, but we'll get to that dark cloud in a bit.

This story does allegedly come with an expiration date:

The father-son caddie plan has an end date. Stewart and Reagan agreed that they’d keep playing together until the summer, when Reagan is scheduled to get married. After that, he’d return to his job at Delta. He’d take the next step in his own life.

According to the Magic 8-Ball, the outlook is cloudy.

In its own way, it was a dominating performance.  Sometimes playing with a lead can be the hardest thing in the game, but Cink pere simply refused to allow for any drama, as this article makes clear:

Stewart Cink pumped his right fist, then smiled. His son and wife cheered from just off the 17th
green at Harbour Town Golf Links. He had just done something Sunday he hadn’t done over the last 3 hours and 30 minutes or so.

Make a putt longer than a yard stick.

His 7-foot, 8-inch bomb for birdie was, surprisingly, his longest made putt to that point during the final round of the RBC Heritage — by a whopping 5 feet, 5 inches. Cink entered Sunday with a five-shot lead and ended it up by four — and through 16 holes, he hadn’t made a putt long enough to come up to his knee.

And yet, he wasn’t defensive, either. He didn’t center-of-the-green Harbour Town to victory — he hit only 12 of 18 greens — and he missed seven putts under 20 feet. But from those points, Cink simply cleaned up and moved on.

Maybe, but every one of those misses was exactly where you want to miss, leaving uneventful up-and-ins...  Low stress, despite that recoiling putter head.

The Tour Confidential panel took on this unlikely reversal of fortune:

2. Stewart Cink continued his renaissance at 47, winning the RBC Heritage by four shots. The victory comes on the heels of his win last September at the Safeway, his first win since 2009. What has Cink discovered that is allowing him to beat players half his age?

Bamberger: He has a long, rhythmic, simple swing that has never changed, not that I can tell. So he waits for good putting weeks. When they come, he can top-10. Sometimes when he top-10s, he top-ones.

Sens: The swing really does look unchanged. What has changed is his caddie. There’s got to be something in that father-son connection that has helped Cink tap the psychological Fountain of Youth.

Dethier: When he’s playing well, he swings with such conviction. Maybe that’s the trust of having Reagan on the bag. Maybe it’s the feeling that he’s playing with house money. Maybe it’s the strategy he’s worked out with his team on choosing the smartest line with every shot. He’s simplified his decision-making, and his execution has followed.

Piastowski: He just looks like he’s having fun out there. That tends to lead to good play, no matter the age.

I don't know, Dylan, but listening to those discussions over every shot it's hard to believe that ANYTHING has been simplified....  But there is certainly some kind of alchemy in play with Reagan on the bag.  

As you might have noticed, Cink wasn't ceding much distance to the young guns.  Back at the time of Kapalua, where Cink was playing by virtue of his win in Napa, Cameron Morfitt had detailed how the old man bridged the distance gap.  Spoiler alert, there's no kale or core crunches involved:

Determined to crack the distance code, he huddled with his coaches. A small change at address gave him an optimized angle of attack and an additional 15 yards of carry. He fine-tuned his equipment specs during a deep dive with Ping, leading to another five-yard gain. Things were looking up.

“I work with Mike Lipnick back at TPC Sugarloaf and also with James Sieckmann,” said Cink, a longtime resident of Atlanta, Georgia. “James, I work with more on short game and putting, but I asked him to take a look at my driver because I just felt like he wasn't really getting – I felt like I was losing distance, but my ball speed and everything was just as high as ever.”

Sieckmann watched him hit a few shots and suggested tweaking his setup, which triggered a few other small changes – all of them beneficial, as it turned out.

“I wasn't trying to change my attack angle,” said Cink. “But the setup change and the way I was using the bigger muscles in my body on my backswing, I accessed more power from stronger areas of my body, and those two changes just resulted in a lot more ball speed and a lot better attack angle.”

With more clubhead speed, and suddenly hitting the ball higher, Cink could take some loft off the driver, which boosted his carry numbers even more.

Sounds like a smarter approach than others'.... and by others' I, of course, mean Rory's.

A few loose ends from the week that touch on issues in the modern game.  This first is just a throwaway, but an interesting glimpse into how this golf course came to be.  George Cobb had designed the original layout on this site though, by the time Pete Dye was brought in, the site itself had been expanded:

The holes do have that "tacked on" feel, though it helps that they're the two most memorable holes, if only because you're not playing in someone's back yard.

Which brings us to an issue that we can't avoid, pace-of-friggin'-play.  An issue I am precluded from avoiding, because of this:

Yowser!  Not only may you hit a "moving" ball, but in such circumstances you're required to do so....

The Tour Confidential panel takes this one on, with something of a split verdict:

4. Speaking of the rules, Si Woo Kim incurred a rare shot-clock penalty during the third round of the RBC when his birdie putt on the 2nd hole fell after about a 55-second wait — the rules say you can wait only 10, and his birdie became a par. Adding to the story, Kim’s playing partner, Matt Kuchar, told a rules official that he swore he saw the ball move, only for the official to say “in this situation, the rules are modified because you could argue that there comes a point in time that we’ve got to play that golf ball. And that’s why you put that time limit on it.” You OK with the penalty in this situation?

Bamberger: Oh, please. Nearly a minute? It’s a joke. It’s golf. People have things to do, including the group behind you. Ten seconds is plenty.

Sens: For sure. But then, my general feeling is, if you’re not keeping up with Matt Jones, you aren’t playing fast enough.

Dethier: No, the rule here makes no sense and never has. It’s pretty elemental to golf that you don’t hit the ball while it’s moving. (Shoutout Phil Mickelson.) So why make an exception here? It’s not like Kuchar was making up his version of events — the reason they were waiting for it to fall is that they all agreed the ball was still in motion. This doesn’t happen often enough to meaningfully slow down play. Count the birdie putt.

Piastowski: I’ve heard a whole bunch about golf being an honest game, and if Kim and Kuch say the ball was moving, the ball was moving. I’d like to believe they wouldn’t stand there for that long if they felt otherwise.

OK, obviously Nick Piastowski has never heard of PReed, which only makes me jealous of Nick.  On the one hand, there's no outcome here that makes a lick of sense, though the saving grace is that he ends up with the same score no matter what he does.

 Shack perhaps over-interprets this incident, lumping it in with the dreadful pace-of-play:

Now that a twosome of American pro golf takes north of four hours to get around any course—even short and well-synced Harbour Town—there are signs the PGA Tour might be recognizing the absurdity of it all.

Since the Florida swing when the Tour has played twosomes on weekends (unless forced by weather to go out in three), their network partners at NBC and CBS have routinely missed their scheduled sign-off on time. This means the rules staff projects a pace hoping to have the round finish just before the network sign-off time. Yet fields are still missing the time par.

Besides being tedious to watch, the extra 45-60 minutes costs “partners” money. And every sport is trying to prevent bloat in fear of the coveted demo going back to their Playstations (if they ever left them to watch golf).

I realize we’ve known this is a problem for a decade or more going back to the Finchem era when the idea of handing out penalties was physically repulsive to Commish Moonbeam. But there were signs last weekend that the act has grown old. CBS noted when Stewart Cink or the group in front of him was put on the clock and without any defense of the slowpokes. The announcers repeatedly questioned the amount of information discussed with caddie/son Reagan. Hint, hint: there was not a lot of admiration for the extent of chit-chat. (Though I’d argue the banter and “process” has helped Cink re-focus to pull off an incredible resurgence.)

Since pace rules have not been enforced with penalties the Cink’s and other slower players have no incentive to change. Throw in green books, all par-5’s within reach in two, a drivable par-4 wait, and it’s hard to break four hours.

The weekend also produced Si Woo Kim’s one-stroke penalty for exceeding the ten-second rule. Noteworthy here is not the enforcement of the rule, but the Tour posting so much controversy on their Twitter feed and the wild sight of Matt Kuchar coming to Kim’s defense. This, as official Stephen Cox calmly explains the rule without highlighting that no ball, dangling on the edge, can move for a minute and not fall in the cup!

I get that Kim's ball was oscillating more than moving, though I can understand that he didn't know what to do.  But the winners banter with his son was charming and no doubt helpful to him, but they were quite obviously slow as heck.  

Shack's header implied that the Tour might be ready to take this one for real, though that seems at best premature.  They have changed the protocols and are now focused on individual bad times, as opposed to the pace of the group, but it seems far too early to conclude that they will actually use these new rules to make the guys move along.

But, so it shouldn't be a complete waste, here's some helpful guidance should you find yourself in Si Woo's predicament:

What if it's cloudy?

You Ko, Girl -  From Hawaii comes word of another return to form of a grizzled veteran:

Players who achieve early success receive great expectations for their careers. At 23, Lydia Ko is no stranger to those with the lengthy resume from her teenage years. She was the youngest, at 15,
to win an LPGA Tour title and became the youngest World No. 1 ever at 17 years old. She won 14 times before turning 20 and was the 2015 Rolex Player of the Year with five victories.

Ko's 16th career victory at the Lotte Championship in Hawaii on Sunday beckons back to her early years of dominance as her talent emerged like a phoenix reborn. Closing with a seven-under-par 65 at Kapolei Golf Club, she seized her first victory in 1,084 days with a tournament-record 28-under 260, beating Inbee Park (63) by seven shots. It's the third-lowest 72-hole score of all time on the LPGA, trailing Sei Young Kim’s top mark of 31 under at the 2018 Thornberry Creek LPGA Classic. Ko’s win ties her with World Golf Hall of Famer Jan Stephenson at 35th in all-time victories on tour.

Think she's on a heater?

Since closing the ANA Inspiration two weeks ago with a 62 that earned her a solo second in the year's first major, Ko has been on an extraordinary run. The eight-year LPGA veteran has shot 38 under over her last 90 holes while notching a 64.4 scoring average. According to statistician Justin Ray of 15th Club, she’s posted birdies at a 42.2-percent clip while hitting 86.7 percent of greens in regulation.

I might have been willing to jettison my Unified Theory of Lydia, to wit, that everything went South for her after she got rid of the oversized glasses, but....  Don't those sunglasses remind you of her old specs?

Amazingly, the girls kicked the lads' butts on pace-of-play this week, per this amusing tweet:


Helped perhaps by the hustle from Golf Channel cameramen?

These guys are good quick.

I was unable to confirm whether that was the same cameraman as in this video:

Good Karma?  This incident reminded me of seeing Lydia in a practice round for the KPMG/LPGA event at Westchester a few years back, when she grabbed a couple of waters from the coolers inside the ropes and gave them to two young kids that were following her.

 Mark this date on your calendar, because the Tour Confidential panel gave Lydia pride of place:

1. Lydia Ko snapped a nearly three-year winless drought with a convincing victory at the Lotte Championship on Saturday night, and over her past 90 holes, she’s now a whopping
38-under par. Analyst Karen Stupples said on the Golf Channel broadcast that this revamped version of Ko, who is 23, could be the best one yet. What do you think? Is the 16-time winner at the beginning of another run of dominance?

Michael Bamberger: I think the game has changed in the past half-decade, from what I have seen, where it favors bashers more than ever. I don’t see Lydia ever being that kind of player. So not likely. But great to see her win again!

Josh Sens: Both things can be true. She might be, as Stupples says, the best version of Lydia so far. But that doesn’t mean she’s going to dominate again. She will win again. But the women’s game is no different than the men’s game. For the shorter hitters to dominate, everything has to be clicking all the more. Which is a long ask in the age of the long ball.

Dylan Dethier: Domination looks more elusive than ever in both the men’s and women’s game. But this win seems like it should help cement Ko’s status at the top of the game. She’s been among the best golfers in the world since golf returned post-hiatus last summer — and now she has the trophy to prove it. That means good things for Ko and good things for the golf world.

Nick Piastowski: Those five rounds and, as Dylan mentioned, her overall recent play are pretty difficult to make such a conclusion, but, you know what, I’m in. She’s tinkered to add a little necessary power to her game, and when you combine that with her championship know-how, watch out.

Domination?  The girl hasn't won in three years, and now you expect her to never lose?  Very silly...

I think there's lots of good stuff in response, and I personally think Mike Bamberger makes an important point.  Interestingly, they're all too polite to reference the last tie Lydia should have won, when she had an event in her grasp and blew up on the final hole (I di hope she got a thank you note from Danielle Kang).  This strategy seems to have been a result of that incident:

Before her final round at the LOTTE Championship, Lydia Ko had a mantra in her head.

“Trust your training,” she told herself.

As a coda to our resurrection chic post, Eamon Lynch tackles the thorny issue of  players who are simply too good to not win again.  Oh, you'll hear the echoes of Jordan and Lydia there, not to mention Hideki, who ended his own three-year winless streak last week.  His poster child is Martin Kaymer:

Yani Tseng won two Women’s British Opens among her five majors and 15 LPGA titles, all in a four-year span. She was 23 when the slump started. She’s now 32 with a world ranking of 1,025th. We can reach back further. Ralph Guldahl: 16 wins, three majors, done at 29.

Every one of those stars met the treacly threshold of being too good not to win again,

Ko’s win proved that fine players can rediscover the magic, but if you knew where to look the same week bore reminders that many simply can’t, no matter how hard they try. Martin Kaymer was third in the European Tour’s Austrian Open on Sunday. The German hasn’t won since the very day he was proclaimed golf’s dominant force—June 15, 2014, the date on which he won the U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2 by eight shots, a month after having won the Players Championship. He was 29 years old with two majors on a 23-win résumé. He’s now 36 but the résumé requires no updating.

Yeah, Yani's a good one as well.... Strangely though, Eamon also mentions former Champion Golfer of the Year Bill Rogers, though no one ever accused him of being too good for much of anything...

Anchor Redux - This was an obvious issue back when the anchoring ban was put in place:

It's been more than five years since golf's anchor ban went into effect, but now one of the PGA Tour's best players is calling for another putting method to be outlawed.

Following Thursday's first round at the RBC Heritage, Billy Horschel brought up the arm-lock putting style that's become popular in recent years. And his take might not be so popular with those who use it.

"I'm bringing up something different here and I'm sort going out on a limb, but I don't think this arm lock putting is—should be allowed either," Horschel said. "I'll give the belly putter back and take away the arm lock."

Go on …

"I think when you look at what guys are doing now with the arm lock and moving the grips to the side where it's parallel or matches the face and then when you do that up against your arm, I mean, it's—you know that face is dead square and that face doesn't rotate at all," Horschel continuted. "It's just sort of locked in. Guys are doing it too good."

It's quite the thorny issue for sure:

Horschel, a recent winner at the WGC-Dell Match Play, is certainly not the first person to question the arm-lock method. Although perfectly legal under golf's current rules, "locking" the
grip of a putter into a player's forearm does serve a similar purpose as anchoring a putter into the chest or stomach. And several former anchorers have turned to it, most notably Webb Simpson.

The technique was on full display at Augusta National last week with Will Zalatoris finishing runner-up in his Masters debut. Zalatoris has said he started using the method in 2018 and that he shot a 59 at his home course two weeks later. He also just happens to be one of Horschel's playing partners the first two rounds at Harbour Town this week. . . awkward!

Other arm-lock putters on tour include Bryson DeChambeau, Matt Kuchar, and Keegan Bradley. DeChambeau tried a variety of putting methods including side-saddle before settling on the arm-lock style. He finished 10th on the PGA Tour in strokes gained putting last season. Simpson was 13th after finishing 11th and fifth in that category the two previous seasons.

"Yes, you could say it's anchored," Horschel said. "I don't know because I guess anchored is having one point against somewhere and a fixed point. I know that's not fixed, but it's something similar to an anchor style."

Forgive the long excerpts, but it's an issue that has long interested me.  How cruel would it be to outlaw a second manner of putting for guys like Webb and Keegan?  

To me, there's little doubt that the putter is anchored.  Of course, the arm isn't a fixed point such as a player's torso, so it's different....  But, enough different?

 The TC gang took a shot at this issue as well:

3. Billy Horschel, after the first round of the RBC, called for a ban on the arm-lock putting technique that has gained favor recently among pros. When arm-locking, players pin the grip of their putters against their forearms, which Horschel argued is, in essence, anchoring — and illegal under the rules. “I think when you look at what guys are doing now with the arm-lock and moving the grips to the side where it’s parallel or matches the face and then when you do that up against your arm, I mean, it’s — you know, that face is dead square and that face doesn’t rotate at all,” Horschel said. “It’s just sort of locked in. Guys are doing it too good.” Is Horschel on to something here?

Bamberger: Definitely. The USGA banned anchored putting. But not all anchored putting. This is not the free-swinging stroke the USGA seems to hold so dear. I agree with Billy. But only at the highest level. For regular-Joe golf, by whatever means necessary is my motto.

Sens: Agreed. It’s like finding loopholes in the tax code. You can make rules, but people will always find creative ways around them that are technically legal but just don’t feel right. I agree with the whatever-means-necessary approach for the rest of us as well, which is why I’m sticking to the pool-cue method. So much easier.

Dethier: Yeah, I don’t really understand why it’s still permitted when the spirit of the rules change seemed designed to make everyone a free-swinger. It was rather bold for Billy to take this stand in the midst of two rounds with arm-locker Will Zalatoris, but I guess he deserves credit for speaking his mind, regardless of present company.

Piastowski: It certainly looks like it, doesn’t it? And you do have to appreciate Horschel’s candidacy, though it does dampen the Zalatoris feel-good story a bit. But I’m going to hold off on a complete opinion here until we hear some thoughts from a few of the arm-lockers. Do they feel they’re skirting the rules?

Ummm, Nick, do we ask criminals whether they feel they were breaking laws?  I have no issues with any player using the rules to their greatest advantage, but nothing could be less relevant than how it makes them feel.... Sheesh!

I find Mike Bamberger's argument for bifurcation in this area....well, ironic.  Because it's near impossible for an amateur to experiment with this as a yip-avoidance protocol.  Not only do you need a long putter, but you need a long putter with something like eight degrees of loft.  I'd like to try it, and I think Bobby D. would concur that I should, but I'd have to buy a custom putter to fiddle with on the practice green.  

Covering The Important Issues - The world has gone gaga over Cameron Smith's hair, so why not this semi-official listing of the best mullets in golf.  This guy is competitive, no?

I'd like this guy banished from our game, though there's no disrespect intended to the mullet:


This is a four-year old piece that ranks the mullets, with the winner being golf's former golden child:

Exit Stuff - Just a couple of silly bits on which I'll make my retreat.  I caught this interesting Twitter hypothetical, see how you might answer it:

Yanno, when the kids tell you the science is settled....

Of course there's an infinite number of answers, and even in golf the name Hogan pops to mind as well.

Though I think my answer might be Micky Mantle.... Though I'm trying hard not to think of baseball these days....

On a related note, I remember a lengthy discussion by Bill James about accommodating injury in his career rankings of players.   He cited the Dodgers' Pete Reiser as his example, noting that since Reiser's mode of play involved frequent collisions with outfield walls, it seems logical to assume that being injured was an integral part of being Pete Reiser.  Of course that didn't help James decide how to deal with the war years...

Our last bit covers the all important subject of golfers' tans....  You've seen them on players like PReed, and it's not a pretty thing.  It's even worse when the golfer involved is bald, and there's no surprise that, in removing his cap on the 18th green, this week's winner at Harbor Town provided the leader in the clubhouse in this genre, specifically this old photo:


So, via No Laying Up, I'm pleased to report that the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree:

 You can have your mullets, I just hope these guys keep rocking...

That's all for today.  I have a bit of a crazy week, so you'll likely have to live without these trenchant insights until Friday.  At least, that's how it looks right now, but I'll make sure that everything gets covered.

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