Monday, December 26, 2022

Weekend Wrap

Nothing to wrap, just happy to have actually made it home despite the bomb cyclone... And happy to report that Tate still prefers to take his post-breaky nap in his father's lap.  Not great as far as the blogging schedule is concerned, but we do it for the children.

To the actual golf news, which is sad.

Kathy Whitworth, RIP - I toyed with an 88, 86'd header, but better to play it safe methinks:

Legendary LPGA Tour player Kathy Whitworth, the winningest golfer on any professional tour, has died at the age of 83.

Whitworth passed away suddenly on Dec. 24 during Christmas Eve celebrations with family and friends, according to a release via the LPGA Tour from Whitworth’s long-time partner, Bettye Odle.

“It is with a heart full of love that we let everyone know of the passing of the winningest golf professional ever, Kathy Whitworth,” Odle wrote. “Kathy passed suddenly Saturday night celebrating Christmas Eve with family and friends. Kathy left this world the way she lived her life, loving, laughing and creating memories.”

LPGA Commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan said in a statement: “The golf world and the world in general lost one of its most incredible women with the passing of Kathy Whitworth. Kathy was a champion in the truest sense of the word, both on the golf course and off.”

It's a lot of wins, whatever one might think of the level of competition:

Whitworth was born in Monahans, Texas, on Sept. 27, 1939, several weeks after the beginning of World War II. By the age of 45, in the mid-1980s, she had amassed 88 LPGA Tour victories—six more than fellow LPGA Hall of Fame member and her great rival, Mickey Wright. Whitworth’s total is also six more than the PGA Tour men’s record of 82 wins, shared by Sam Snead and Tiger Woods.

"I was really fortunate in that I knew what I wanted to do," Whitworth said in a Golf Digest interview in 2009. "Golf just grabbed me by the throat. I can't tell you how much I loved it. I used to think everyone knew what they wanted to do when they were 15 years old."

The circle of life thing is on full display, first with this tribute:

As well as this 2015 photo:


 Golf Digest has reposted this 2009 Ron Sirak feature, in which he ledes with her Texas roots:

The main dining room at Trophy Club Country Cub outside of Dallas gazes upon the rolling hills
and old oak trees through which two courses meander, one named for the club's most famous member, Kathy Whitworth, the other the lone design by the icon of Texas golf, Ben Hogan. Inside the dining room the wall opposite the windows appears at first to be a shrine to the rich golf history of a state that gave the game Hogan, Byron Nelson and Babe Zaharias, among others. The glass case running nearly the length of the room overflows with the spoils of victory.

But closer inspection reveals the hardware was all earned by just one daughter of the Lone Star State—Whitworth—whose 88 LPGA victories are the most ever on a professional tour, eclipsing the PGA Tour record of 82 shared by Tiger Woods and Sam Snead. Fifty years after a rookie season in which she averaged 80.30 strokes a round, won only $1,217 and came within a hairsbreadth of quitting, Whitworth stands alone as golf's greatest winner. But the trophies that fill the shelves represent more than victory on the course; they symbolize the lifelong demands Whitworth made on herself to master the game she loved.

Definitely something in the water down there....

But this is the bit you'll remember, because it's the same for all of us:

"I was really fortunate in that I knew what I wanted to do," Whitworth says on a crystal clear morning, the sun streaming across Trophy Club and into the dining area that celebrates her career. "Golf just grabbed me by the throat. I can't tell you how much I loved it. I used to think everyone knew what they wanted to do when they were 15 years old."

Same for most of us, just she was actually good enough to make her living at the game, though it was barely a living unless you won 88 times.

A giant for sure.  RIP.

Dispatches From Planet Phil -  Like Hans Gruber falling from Nakatomi Plaza:

World Ranking milestone that wouldn’t exactly please Phil Mickelson went almost unnoticed for two weeks: The six-time major winner dropped out of the top 200 for the first time in more than 30 years.

On Dec. 11, 45-time PGA Tour winner Mickelson dropped nine places on the Official World Golf Ranking to No. 201. A week later, the 52-year-old Mickelson dropped to No. 209 and a week after that, on Christmas Day, he fell to his current rank of No. 213.

The last time the California native was ranked outside the world’s top 200 was before the 1992 New England Classic, the PGA Tour’s stop in Sutton, Mass. Mickelson had just turned pro in the summer of ‘92, following his third individual NCAA title while playing at Arizona State, and his first event as a pro was the 1992 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.

If you right click on it, you'll see the name I gave the file.  Which is modestly amusing, only because it sits in my photo library next to photo denoting his fall outside the Top 50....  Isn't it great when a plan come together?

As for the header, I assume my astute readership is aware of the raging debate as to whether thast certain film is or is not a Christmas movie.  Well, buster, hold my beer:

I’m sorry, but did I just overhear you guys saying Die Hard is a Christmas movie? I did? Oh, well
I hate to sour this holiday party, but I’d be remiss not to point out that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life of hearing things. Die Hard has been and will always be the greatest Hanukkah movie ever created.

But not only is the film anti-Christmas, the whole plot is Hanukkah. Do you guys even know the story of Hanukkah, or have you been too busy polishing Santa’s candy cane to learn it? Hanukkah is all about reclaiming the Temple in Jerusalem from invaders. What does John McClane, AKA J.M., AKA Jewish Man, do in Die Hard? He reclaims the skyscraper, Nakatomi Plaza, from invaders: Hans Gruber (short for Hanukkahs Gruber, aka “The Hanukkah Grabber,” aka “The Man Who Wants to Steal Hanukkah”) and his evil elves.

How did you guys not see that? I mean, the place is called Nakatomi Plaza, one of the most Jewish-sounding Japanese names in existence, and what does the building look like? Nobody knows? Really? It looks like a really tall dreidel! This is Film Symbology 101, people. If there’s a building in a shot, that’s called a “dreidel scene,” and it represents the fact that we should all fear God, because He could spin our buildings around whenever He wants.

perhaps slightly off-topic, but we try to cover the most pressing issues of our day. 

But at least he doesn't have to deal with that obnoxious greed from Ponte Vedra Beach any longer and he has the benefit of owning his media rights now.  What?  LIV owns those rights?  The bastards!  Why it's almost as if everything Phil says is, well, self-aggrandized BS.  I'm so disillusioned....

This is obviously as fake as Phil himself is, but who doesn't love the photo?

What would be the best historical analogy of someone squandering their legacy?  For some reason Charles Lindbergh pops into mind, though admittedly the coffee hasn't quite kicked in.  Maybe the steroid-era baseball players as well, but our baby FIGJAM is more FII these days, the "I" being irrelevant.

Golf In The Time of LIV - The Tour Confidential gang as their 114th year-end column up, but there's little else with which to amuse ourselves, so shall we?

1. Before we look ahead to 2023 in Tour Confidential next week, let’s recap some of the most memorable headlines of the past 12 months. While the stories of the year were obviously LIV’s inaugural season and Tiger’s return, what other major storyline did everyone seem to overlook?

Hmmm, a LIV-free zone sounds promising, though perhaps unachievable. 

Ryan Barath: Scottie Scheffler had one of the hottest runs of any player on the planet this year but because it coincided with LIV Golf, players leaving the PGA Tour, and a demeanor that shies away from the spotlight, it went almost forgotten by the fall.

Well, I'm pretty sure we noticed at the time.  He looked unbeatable and it was quite the heater, but the more interesting question is to ponder when he'll resume his winning ways. 

Josh Sens: You can’t really disentangle this one from LIV, but to me, the biggest story was professional golf being forced to reckon with itself. There’s clearly a disconnect between what the sport says it wants to be (global, diverse, forever growing) and what it actually is. The question is whether golf at the elite level can close that gap by creating a product that will continue to draw in a new generation of fans while satisfying extremely well-compensated professional golfers who somehow seem to think they’re underpaid.

Boy, that's quite the hot mess of an answer.   He quite clearly conflates the fame with the professional game, which bear only the slightest connective tissue.  But LIV has exacerbated all of those fault lines, and cause the Tour to become more exclusive and, more importantly, cast the most famous of players in a most unflattering light.  

Jack Hirsh: I think Rory McIlroy’s statistical brilliance went somewhat overshadowed by his outspokenness while rising back to World No. 1. Even before McIlroy took down Scheffler for the FedEx Cup, McIlroy was No. 1 on the PGA Tour in Strokes Gained: Total and scoring average. Data Golf actually pegged McIlroy as the best player in the world in June, after he won the RBC Canadian Open. The duel with Scheffler in East Lake was a matchup of the winningest player of 2022 and the statistical best. In a year most will probably remember McIlroy (partly) taking the mantle as the face of the PGA Tour through his statements to the media, his play on the course was just as memorable, if not more. Honorable mention is how Jon Rahm didn’t have a bad season.

I guess Rory's statistical freak show is meant to obscure the fact that he didn't actually win anything of importance?  Now, there's a case for optimism for Rory, because he did seem to have actually improved an area of weakness, specifically the distance control issues with his wedges, but it did seem to take him decades to do so.

I like Rory as an individual more than most of these guys, but I've been a consistent skeptic about his game for some time.  I'll note the progress, but I also feel compelled to add that he let a rare opportunity slip through his hands at St. Andrews, one with out-sized importance because of Cam Smith's widely-known intention to bolt to the dark side.  It's by no means fair, as this game is so cruel, but as good as his positions were on LIV, this resulted in the Smith defection being far more important than it would have been otherwise.

2. What was your favorite major of 2022 (men’s or women’s), and why?

Let's just agree that it wasn't a great year for majors.... The best of the bunch was clearly at the Old Course, but alas it leaves quite the bitter after-taste.  Now we'll allow the writers to prove my point:

Barath: On the men’s side, the US Open is my top choice thanks in part to the host course The Country Club, along with the nail-biting finish it provided. Matt Fitzpatrick hit the shot of the year on the 18th hole and there’s not much more you could ask from major championship golf.

In an example of bad tradecraft, your humble blogger was on an Alaska Air flight from Portland to Bozeman, MT that day, without access to live TV or adequate Internet service to stream.  But, while in Utah, I did catch the replay on Golf Channel of the final round, and it was indeed pretty good, mostly because of all the show ponies that, well, showed.

But I'm left with this nagging sense that the USGA has lost it's mind.  If the Country Club is able to handle the demands of modern golf in 2022, why on God's green Earth wasn't the 2013 Open held there to celebrate the centenary of Frances Ouimet?  Yanno, the signature moment in the history of American golf....

Ryan now turns to the ladies:

For the women, it was the Chevron Championship thanks to Jenifer Kupcho – the inaugural Agusta National Womens Amateur winner, winning the event and taking the final leap into Poppie’s Pond during the same week as the ANWA. It was a fitting time to win her first major.

Except that the week was consumed by the realization that the ladies were forced to abandon their most iconic event because of the patriarchy.  Nice job, Fred!

Sens: The Open Championship could have used more wind and the Masters could have used more drama, but on balance, this was a great major year thanks to the venues. I’m with Ryan in giving the U.S. Open top billing, given the quality of the course and the tautness of the competition. But the PGA Championship was a close second for me, on another terrific course, with some heroic shot-making by Justin Thomas down the stretch and the underdog-hero-tragedy element of Mito Pereira coming oh so close. It had all the ingredients for great drama.

The PGA?  Yeah, that's the ticket.... This to me was the definitive take on Mito's 18th hole tee shot:

It's no disgrace to hang around and win a major as JT did, but it's also not the stuff of heroism.

Hirsh: I third Barath’s choice with the U.S. Open at Brookline. Perfect example of the USGA bringing back a classic U.S. Open host back into the rotation and providing an excellent venue. Not to mention it was one most of the public hadn’t seen, at least for a while. The leaderboard had every character you wanted: A couple of the best players in the world (McIlory, Rahm, Scheffler, Morikawa), a hometown hero (Keegan Bradley), the upstart looking for his first title (Will Zalatoris) and the guy who won the U.S. Amateur at the same venue (Fitzpatrick).

This seems, well, ambitious:

3. Who, or what, in the golf world won 2022?

The amateur game?  

Barath: One word — Speed. Whether it was the much talked about extra swing speed gain from US Open winner Matt Fitzpatrick, or the speed of the golf news cycle that made it feel like you were trying to drink from a fire hose. It felt like the fastest-moving golf season I have ever experienced as a fan, and as someone that covers the game for a living. As someone that lives in a four seasons climate, I just hope winter feels like it flies by equally fast.

Didn't see that one coming.  True enough that Fitzy and Lydia Ko did seem to do the impossible, add distance without losing their games and their minds.  That said, it's also the year in which the exemplar of speed, that DeChambeau guy, told us all it was a horrible mistake.

Sens: Lydia Ko. She didn’t win the biggest tournaments but she won Rolex Player of the Year and the Vare Trophy for low-scoring average. She did this after pulling her game out of a death spiral of the kind that most players never recover from. And she did it with the class and kindness and joy that she has always shown, in good times or bad. It’s corny to say, but a win for Ko is a win for anyone who appreciates the best aspects of sports in general and golf in particular. There is no easier player to root for in the game.

The more so as 2022 looked to be a struggle for primacy between Nelly Korda and Jin Young Ko.  Given the struggles of those two worthies, the LPGA drew to an inside straight in having Lydia reemerge.  Tees up an interesting 2023 for sure, though the ladies remain the tree that falls in the forest...

Hirsh: Change. The PGA Tour has a rival now. The game has defined its villains and heroes more clearly than ever. The PGA Tour is making radical changes to its schedule and structure which were long overdue. Legendary broadcasters are hanging up their microphones. Purse sizes are blowing up out the wazoo. Is all this change good for the game? Check back in 2023 I guess.

OK, but those changes mostly suck.  

Look, until LIV golf pretended to have no villains, mostly because of the protective umbrella from the PGA Tour.  Their calculation was to assure us that their members were all gentlemen, and to ensure that no information would emerge to contradict that narrative.  Obviously, discrete data would occasionally emerge, DJ's failed drug tests and the priceless release of John Daly's disciplinary file, but mostly omertà held.

To me, the biggest effect of 2022 was to remove that veneer of respectability, and to see these guys as they really are, most notably in front of microphone justifying their support of those who employ bonecutters and mass beheadings.  I actually think this is a win, berceuse ultimately reality has to bne a win, no?  perhaps now, if someone admires one of these guys such as Rory, it might actually be real.

Augusta Bits - Nothing too profound, though I'm running out of time:

4. Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley announced any player — regardless of which tour they play on — will be invited to the 2023 Masters as long as they qualify, a big win for LIV players. Surprised by Augusta’s decision, and how much will it influence golf’s other three organizations that run major championships?

Barath: From the standpoint of holding course, this is not a shock decision from Augusta National. Now considering the other major golf organizations that host championships are all in it for their own business reasons in the same way Augusta is (although in a more public way) I expect much of the same from everyone else.

Sens: Not a surprising decision. This never looked like a battle Augusta was going to take on. The safer–and more sensible–approach is to stick with its traditions and wait and see how things shake out. I’d expect the same from the other organizations. They’ll stick with their customary criteria. As we all know, those criteria might wind up keeping some LIV players on the sidelines based on the Official World Golf Ranking, which those organizations have a say in. That’s the elephant in the room, of course, and it can only be ignored for so long.

Hirsh: Sure it’s a win for LIV players, but in the same way going to the bank without getting robbed is. It was never realistic Augusta National was going to disinvite already qualified players. I see this actually more of a win for the PGA Tour. Augusta is essentially saying it’s not their fight, but by not creating a new pathway for LIV golfers to qualify, it’s standing by the Tour. Now that could change, as you see in the next question…

It was never going to go asny other way.  The coming fight will be about the OWGR, where Mr. Ridley has a vote.  The only one to watch is the PGA, but not that I'm expecting them to be excluded.

That doesn't mean that the Tuesday dinner at ANGC will be a warm gathering of dear friends....

5. The statement also added that “any modifications or changes to invitation criteria for future Tournaments will be announced in April.” Does this mean more changes might be on the horizon, or simply an obligatory statement stamped to the end of a press release?

Sens: There will be more to come on this. See above on the OWGR.

Barath: It would not surprise me to see Augusta National completely ignore LIV Golf and its roster of players as a whole moving forward, but on the flip side — I could also see them devise their own internal ranking system to fill the field and offer some sort of top LIV exemption. It really is a complete wildcard at this point and I’m as curious as everyone else to see how this pans out in the future. Their power in the world of golf lies in their ability to remain a completely separate entity and I don’t think have any intention of giving that up any time soon.

Hirsh: This isn’t obligatory at all. It could end up meaning nothing, but if Augusta announces any sort of pathways for LIV golfers to earn Masters invites, it would obviously be a massive win for the Saudi-backed league. But it also may end up meaning nothing.

It means that Augusta will do as Augusta pleases.  But a lot will depend on what happens between now and then, specifically whether there are additional defections.  

That'll have to do you for today.  I'll be playing it by ear as to blogging this week.  

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