Friday, January 28, 2022

Late-Week Lethargy

It's later in the week than a typical Friday morning, as trunks have already been slammed in LaJolla....  Though, based upon all the moaning and groaning from that one guy, I hope he let his looper handle the trunk lid.

Horses For Course and What's In a Name - I spent way too much time worried about the order in which Rahm and Thomas would hole out, the first logically poised to go in the final group with the guy with the funny name..... only to find out they're going in threesomes today.  

But I guess the joint suits his eye?

Rahm’s love affair with Torrey continues

Predicting what’s going to happen in a golf tournament is, with all due respect to the Golf Digest’s own “Be Right” boys, the ultimate fool’s errand. Just last week, Hudson Swafford was somewhere around 200-1 and proceeded to win The American Express. The Farmers, then, is a ripe opportunity for bookies to take a victory lap, for the top two pre-tournament favorites share the lead after 36 holes.

If predicating it is a "fools errand," what does that making betting on it?  That sound your hear is a hit team mobilizing in Ponte Vedra Beach.... 

For Rahm, this week sure looks like the next chapter in a long love affair with Torrey Pines. It’s where the 27-year-old Spaniard won his first PGA Tour event, with that winding 60-foot eagle putt on the final hole in 2017. It’s where he proposed to his wife, Kelley. And it’s where he won his first major championship just seven months ago, holing birdie putts on 17 and 18 for a one-shot victory in the U.S. Open. It doesn’t get much better than that. Rahm’s more than comfortable in San Diego and he’s been the No. 1 ranked player in the world for the better part of the year. JT—and the rest of the field—have their work cut out for them.

He's also the best player on the planet, and this is fortunately more than a putting contest, although scores aren't all that much higher than last week.

Of course there's that guy with the funny name in the mix.  The funny thing about that funny name is that, apparently, it's not just a name:

Adam Schenk celebrated his 30th birthday on Wednesday.

The party continued on Thursday.

In search of his first PGA Tour title, Schenk made eight consecutive birdies – falling just one shy of the record – and added two more to fire a career-low, 10-under 62 on the North Course at Torrey Pines in the second round to grab a share of the lead in the Farmers Insurance Open.

“I lost track of how many I made in a row, but there was a lot of low scores on the North Course yesterday and I knew there was a lot of gettable holes and I needed to keep going if I wanted to get up on top of the leaderboard and hopefully stay there throughout the weekend,” he said. “So I know I had to try to keep the pedal down and not get satisfied with how many birdies I made.

And suffered an evil lip-out on his putt for 61....  But the start of his day was amusing:

Back then, he started to hear the jokes about his last name. It sounds like shank – the most dreaded shot in golf. It’s when a player hits the ball on the hosel of the club and the ball shoots way right.

Funny thing, Schenk hit a shank on Thursday.

“It was my first one in a while, but I cold shanked a sand wedge, it was like my third shot of the day,” he said about his range session. “But I usually hit it off the toe in tournaments, so that’s fortunate.

Was it like the driving range scene from Tin Cup?   perhaps of greater significance is that he hit all of three fairways...  Sir Nick and the crew kept telling us how tough the rough is on both courses, though we kept seeing guys stiff it all day from the spinach.  

Anybody have a clue what was up with this guy?  Even when he's happy and playful he's a bit weird, but yesterday didn't do his brand any favors:

On a day where DeChambeau continually grabbed for his lower back, and continually massaged his left wrist, and yelled an obscenity after a shot, and had Golf Channel analysts questioning the
severity of what they were watching, Thursday was not without a lighter moment from golf’s longest hitter.

In the end, DeChambeau signed for an even-par 72 during the second round of the Farmers Insurance Open, which followed a first-round 70, and he missed the cut by a stroke. But it was an eerie moment on his first shot of the back nine, after pulling out of an event two weeks ago due to a minor injury, that put in at least some doubt his immediate future, if not beyond that.

This seems to be what passed for the author's "lighter moment":

At least he can give the back a little rest, no?

Next week, he is expected to play in the Saudi International — and take the lengthy flight for it.

Forget the flight, I hope he doesn't tweak his wrist endorsing that appearance fee check...

Do we think he spent any time this week with BFF Brooksie?  More importantly, did he recognize him?

Obviously I'm not an optimal tour guide for the zeitgeist, but the frat boy persona seems an awkward fit with the metrosexual look... Though the bigger issue is that neither is a good fit with the early departure that has become his signature move.

That's bad enough, though Claire Rogers wants me to hold her beer:

Brooks Koepka went blonde, so we made other pros blonde as well

You sure about this?


Only one of those three made it to the weekend and, blonde or otherwise, I'd pleased to not see him in the next two days of coverage.  Included in the notables who will not be with us are a couple of guys that played together yesterday:


Rickie Fowler (66-76)

The struggles continued for Fowler, who has not won since the 2019 Waste Management Phoenix Open and has just four top-10s in his last 44 starts on the PGA Tour. Things looked bright after Fowler opened with a 66 on the North Course, and he moved to 7 under with a birdie on the second hole on the South Course in the second round. But he made two double bogeys and three bogeys the rest of the way en route to a 76 in Thursday’s second round.

The excitement that ensure when Rickie plays a few good holes is becoming quite tedious.  Rickie hopefully has a happy marriage and a new child to cushion the blow, but he's just not a very good player any longer.

Jordan Spieth (70-78)

The three-time major winner made five bogeys and a double bogey in his round of 78 on the South Course Thursday. Coupled with his 70 on the North in the opening round, he finished 4 over. Now Spieth heads to one of his favorite places in the golf world – Pebble Beach – for next week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

I think we tend to over estimate the effect playing partners have on each other, though their group (which also included Bryson) had some serious dark mojo going down.

So, is Jordan headed to Pebble because he loves the place, or because he's the only guy not offered a huge appearance fee by the Saudis?

One last bit about the venue.  Like me, do you OD on the constant references to bumpy poa?  It does so happen that, just because Nick Faldo says it, it doesn't mean that it's wrong:


A little hard to read for sure, but you can see it in the original format here. 

Initial reaction:  Is this why they're not returning to Mexico City?

Here was Geoff's take from the Quad:

Data Golf posted the list of toughest greens to putt and Winged Foot continues to influence plenty of statistical categories. Hardly a shocker. But this week’s Farmers Insurance Open host and 2021 U.S. Open site Torrey Pines made the list twice. Much of this is the inevitable influence of “poa”. But some of it also highlights how a set of thoroughly unimaginative greens can wreak as much havoc as those with strong slopes (Augusta National).

There really is nothing notable about these greens, except for the mouse ears that Rees added in preparation for the 2008 Open.   It remains a world class piece of land with quite the boring golf course, but it does offer no shortage of eye candy for this time of year.

Augusta On Our Mind - CBS has been running Masters promos on their NFL broadcasts, and will presumably do the same on its golf broadcasts beginning today.  There have been a series of aerial photos indicating changes 

We've been anticipating a lengthening of Nos. 11 and 15, and Geoff had this on the latter:

Expect new 2022 Masters yardages after a busy summer of construction. The par-5 15th is definitely in for a scorecard boost, as is the 11th based on earth work captured by Eureka Earth.

Putt View Books spotted new aerials and made the comparison to 2021. The 15th has around 530 yards since the last extension and could jump to as much as 550 based on images and Augusta 
National’s preference for round numbers.

i can't tell from my preview function whether this video will  function properly to show the new tees:


But the shocker is this one:

And the 18th? Already the 7th toughest over time, it has played as the one of the top three most difficult in some recent Masters, but fell to the 9th most difficult in the 2021 Masters. It seems likely to go from 465 to as much as 480 based on 14 yards of added length.

Note to those on the television side, the extension creates less room for the iconic tower camera view behind the tee. Only when it comes to the Masters would any of us even care about such things!

Normally you'd shrug at a mere fourteen yards, but that's quite the narrow chute they play through.  That guy that comes to No. 18 needing a birdie to win is now facing a steeper climb on a hole that already featured one of the steepest climbs in championship golf.  Your humble blogger is old enough to remember when we wanted birdie roars on the back nine on Sunday.

Central Planning - At the risk of assigning far too much importance to Tyrell Hatton's impotent rage, Geoff has an amusing post on the history of centerline hazards.  Yup, everything old is new again, but you'll never guess where there used to be one, as well as the Daddy issues that saw it removed.

First, Geoff frames the issue:

It’s a question most golfers have grappled with since architects started building them. Some odd emotion is evoked by course designers having the audacity to place a bunker in the direct path to the hole and then, gasp, surrounding this feature with short cut grass. Tyrrell Hatton is only the latest to take total offense at such bunker placement by ranting last week about Yas Links’ 18th even as the offending sand was well guarded by fairway—on all sides!— and all because the architect trying to reward those who took risk.

Whether the options work or not is for another day or the Abu Dhabi Light and Shopper’s Senior Architecture Editor to figure out. This is a newsletter about majors. And the good news for the centerline bunker haters: only the Old Course this year will present such offensive obstacles at the Quadrilateral.

Fair enough, although in the absence of a proper wind, those centerline hazards on the Old Course can be carried by the entire field, even Hell Bunker.

But, here's where it gets and reminds us why we keep Geoff around:

Augusta National had two holes with them when it opened. The par-5 8th’s landing area was broken up by an ample bunker that has gradually shifted right in recent decades. Bob Jones and Alister MacKenzie worked to place it just so, as evidenced by the famous construction photograph where we see Jones testing things out.

Said bunker was still there in the Hogan era:


That's a cover image from Sports Illustrated.

Augusta National’s 11th originally featured multiple small bunkers in what appeared to be an homage to the Principal’s Nose at St Andrews. A 1938 aerial shows the bunkers still there but soon they were gone and the tee moved to the left of the 10th green.

So, why did they disappear?  For the usual reason, that the wrong guy ended up in it:

In The Making of The Masters, David Owen shared the story of Jones’s father, Colonel Bob Jones, driving into the bunker. Children of The Quad please cover your eyes:

“When the Colonel found his ball in the sand, he shouted, ‘What goddamned fool put a goddamned bunker right in the goddamned center of the fairway?’ or words to that effect. His son, who was playing with him (along with Clifford Roberts), had to answer, ‘I did.’ The bunker was eventually filled in, though not till many years later.”

The Colonel always got his way.

Geoff has a little more, including a centerline tree at Southern Hills to keep in mind, though let's not tell Tyrell for now.  Better to see his head explode when he gets there in May.

This is Geoff's logical conclusion on the subject:

The Old Course still features pot bunkers where players want to go, though many are bordered by rough where there was once fairway. The 12th, 15th and 16th still retain the most obvious centerline intrusions, while the Hell bunker breaks up the mid-point on the Long fourteenth. Yet those random Old Course pots of sand started as natural creations later formalized by man and bother people less than more blatant bunkers built by bulldozers.

As with most things in golf architecture it comes down to this: if something is natural or seems like it was always there, golfers embrace the quirk. But if someone dared to place a bunker on the direct path to the hole then bring out the dynamite and declare it a disaster! Tyrrell Hatton is hardly alone in thinking this way. He’s just the latest in a long line who fell prey to a gloriously simple annoyance. Wish we had more of the little pits.

Pretty much.

Read Of The Day -  I'm an old school kind of guy, so you'll quickly understand why I love this item:


Calligraphy in golf scorekeeping is believed to date back to at least the 1950s. PGA professionals were even schooled in the art in order to bring upscale flourish to scoreboards for local events. Typically, there’d be a board positioned on the course and another in the press area, with a calligrapher and, usually, a couple of assistants for each.

Most scoreboard calligraphers use four or five pens (red, black, blue and green are the go-tos), but there’s no one way to ply the trade. Refillable-ink markers are an option. So are Sharpies, in bulk — six of each color might be used in a single event. Whatever the writing tool, ink-stained hands were and still are inescapable battle scars of the work.

“I’ve always said I’m just an adult who never gave up my crayons,” jokes Stansberry.

False modesty:


 These guys are artists...

Great art for sure, but these boards also provided a natural gathering spot:

The effort was worth it. Calligraphy boards are not only tours de force of a fading art, they have also long been a natural gathering place, the nucleus of a golf tournament, a place buzzing with camaraderie. And, of course, a key source of information.

“Whether they appreciated the artistry of it or not, they appreciated knowing the scores,” Stansberry says. “Golf is a sport of tradition, and it’s a shame that tradition of [players and fans] gathering in one spot went by the wayside.”

And when we lose our traditions, what exactly are we left with?

Read the whole thing.  There's even an accompanying piece on tips to become the calligrapher of choice at your home club.  This to your humble blogger is way more important than folding sweaters...

That's it for now, kids.  Not sure when I'll wrap Torrey, given the Saturday finish.


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