And the good news is that the wide swing in weather variance — for instance, a mid-April week where the temperatures were in the 70s and 80s, and more recently a stretch of nonstop rainy days— has actually been a good thing for course preparation.“We’ve had some warm weather, we’ve had adequate rainfall, so I think that when it’s all said and done, the next two weeks look really good and I think we’re gonna be in a good spot,” Corcoran said.The rough has always been the primary defense for the East Course because there isn’t a lot of water or out of bounds areas. Sure, fast greens with subtle undulations are a challenge, but the pros putt on greens like that every week. They rarely see rough as long and thick as it will be at Oak Hill.
Yes, though that rough hasn't always played to such raves, as Geoff hints at in this tease:
I bring good news! Even though Oak Hill has been home to some of the most grotesque architectural and setup crimes in major championship history, most signs point to better times ahead at next week’s PGA.I’ll have more on the hackery over the years that left us with hack-out majors on a compromised course where the work proved so bad that the meddlers made Donald Ross a household name. This led to a restoration movement where next week’s Andrew Green effort seeks to undo the nonsense added by the cynical Robert Trent Jones, the attempted improvements by the feckless Fazio’s, and even the dreaded touch ups by Tom Marzolf who so effortlessly can make any golf course worse.
Feckless Fazios? We love alliteration though I'd posit that they'd only be more dangerous with feck..... But we look foreword to Geoff's further description of the hackery involved....
Lot's of musing over the qualification criteria, which Geoff dives in on:
As much as we’d like a positive course story to be the headliner next week, I sense the restoration may take a bit of a back seat to dreary discussions about the PGA of America’s field selection process. The organization announced some oddball inclusions this week at a time when there is understandable interest in how majors welcome players.Paul Casey, ranked 131st in the world, was somehow invited. And Siwan Kim, who is +70 in LIV’s first five events of 2023 and has fallen to 239th in the world, “earned” his way in on the first-time employed “Top 3 Federation Rank”.
Bob Harig seemingly has a similar concern, although he doesn't tell us the basis on which those above 100 were admitted:
Anirban Lahiri, ranked 98th in the world, is a LIV player who made it into the field via the top 100, while No. 103 Cameron Tringale of LIV did not. Danny Willett, the 2016 Masters champion, who is 99th in the world and No. 100 Kazuki Higa of Japan are in the field. Higa also qualified via the International Federation due to his finish on the Japan Tour. No. 101 Ben Taylor was also invited, as were several others beyond 100.
On the subject of your humble blogger's laziness, always take the over.... meaning that if you want to know what a Top 3 Federation rank is, fire up the Google machine.
There are 18 LIVsters in the field, so Go Range Goats!.
Match Play Props - I was short of time on Monday, and accordingly failed to give this distaff event its due:
Dominant doesn’t do justice in describing the performance of Team Thailand at this week’s Hanwha LifePlus International Crown, capped fittingly by a 3-0 sweep of Australia in Sunday afternoon’s finals at TPC Harding Park.Over four days, the foursome of Atthaya Thitikul, Patty Tavatanakit and sisters Moriya and Ariya Jutanugarn made a litany of history as the team match-play event returned to the LPGA schedule for the first time in five years. They were the first team to sweep pool play. Their 11 collective wins (out of 12 overall matches) was the most of any country in any of the three previous editions of the event. They were the lowest seed (six) to ever win, besting Spain as a five-seed in in inaugural crown 2014.In the second singles match, Tavatanakit won the second hole against Hannah Green and didn’t surrender the lead, cruising to a 4-and-3 victory over arguably the hottest player on the LPGA Tour to guarantee the victory over the Aussies.Fittingly in the anchor match, the Jutanugarn sisters did the Jutanugarn sisters thing. Starting a bit slowly after going 18 holes in the morning before beating Nelly Korda and Danielle Kang, 1 up, to close out the Americans in the semifinals, Moriya and Ariya won four straight holes from Nos. 7 to 10 against Minjee Lee and Sarah Kemp. For good measure, Ariya, already aware her team had won the Crown, chipped in on the 15th to close out a 4-and-3 win and start the celebration. She earned the first-ever MVP trophy at the Crown.
This is an interesting and worthy event, not that I expect that anyone was watching, it being the ladies and all. But team match play rocks, and one can only hope they commit to this event, although I believe it's supposed to be only every other year (non-Solheim years, that is).
The other obvious point to make is the inherent oddity of that Solheim Cup. It's great that the U.S. and European women take it so seriously and it benefits from the required dollop of personal animosity, but the fatal flaw is that the balance of power on women's golf lies elsewhere..... One further takeaway is that, while we've long thought of womer\n's golf as being Korean-dominated, I think this event makes clear that we should pan out and realize that these days Asian-dominated is far more accurate.
This caught my eye as well, true if not completely accuarte:
It's not just match play, it's team match play. As for that last bit, they don't do gold on the LPGA Tour,.
The author seems not to understand that distinction:
Match play is an inherently difficult business proposition in professional golf. For television partners, the dwindling field sizes and risk of big-name departures lead to limited patience. For tournament hosts, the same factors work against ticket sales and attendance intrigue.
Most of which is solved in team match play, although it's a bit much to expect a Golf Magazine write to understand anything that subtle. There is a downside that's left unexplored, given that the most popular player in the world, Lydia Ko, is excluded because she plays for New Zealand, not exactly a golf powerhouse.
That said, it is an opening for the ladies, one that also solves their Solheim Cup issue.
Wither Rory - The Ulsterman has always been a high-beta player, but it seems folks feel the need to explain his current funk:
The stress finally hit Rory McIlroy, and now he faces the biggest decision of his career
The stress? Yeah, that's the ticket....
Shane Ryan uses Paul McGinley to frame his piece:
Looking back on that paragraph is illuminating for a few reasons, but mostly because McGinley, with his usual keen psychological insight, identified something essential to McIlroy, which washis inability to "stick to golf." McGinley himself is a thinker and talker, but he knew he was never on McIlroy's level of talent, and he went on to praise Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson for their more stoic, focused attitudes.It wouldn't have surprised McGinley to see what happened in 2022, when McIlroy became the designated standard bearer for the PGA Tour in the war against LIV Golf. Not only did he compete at the highest level on the golf course, but he also spoke out more than anyone, by far, in defense of the tour and used his influence to help fundamentally redesign its structure. He was wearing at least three hats, and remarkably, his play didn't seem to suffer. Sure, he lost a winnable Open Championship at St. Andrews—a singular heartbreak—but he also won three times, including the Tour Championship and finished the year as the No. 1 golfer in the world.
Fortunately, he wasn't chewing gum at the same time, so what's the prob? It's possible, but it's also quite possible that the recurring flaws in his game, the putting and wedge distance control, reared their ugly heads as they're wont to do.
But Shane Ryan is trying to peg this as some binary choice, and I'm not buying what he's selling:
But the key thing to remember is that none of it comes for free. It might have been easy to miss that last year, when he seemed to be on top of the world and juggling his responsibilities effortlessly. He held the stress at bay, and he has the strength of mind to persevere and even thrive. But that stress has finally landed on his shoulders. Now, he's staring down the rest of his career, and two paths are open before him. He could shield himself, become more of an automaton before the press and let someone else take up the heavy mantle of leadership. Or he could be himself, continue on his outspoken journey and take his rest where he can. It's no easy choice—take the first path, and you may sacrifice your values and seal yourself off from the world that helps you thrive. Take the second, and you may cost yourself a brighter playing legacy and risk repeated burnouts.And if neither of those choices sounds particularly great, and if it's tough to scope out a middle ground … well, maybe we've begun to understand the price of being Rory McIlroy.
I actually think just the opposite. That Rory reveled in being the conscience of the game and it gave his game a boost, though bad distance control with wedges may be as integral a part of his essence as his activism and garrulousness.
My bigger problem with Rory is not that he was outspoken, it's that he was so undisciplined in his over-sharing, frequently going places (hankering for a rapprochement with LIV, calling out Greg Norman personally, etc.) that were counter to the Tour's best interest. Shane also credits Rory with "redesigning the tour", without a thought as to whether that redesign is at all a good thing....
In his Monday Finish column, Dylan Dethier covers Rory more succinctly:
NOT-WINNERSNot their week.Rory McIlroy finished his week on a strangely fitting note, torpedoing a nice final round with three balls in the water on his final five holes to post a four-day total of even-par T47. That comes in the wake of his missed cut at the Masters and his notable absence at the RBC Heritage, all of which adds up to less-than-ideal form going into the PGA Championship. Still, he’ll start the week at Oak Hill at even par, same as everybody else.
Don't they all start every week at even par? Well, all except the most bizarre one at East Lake...
DQ Of The Day - This game is hard enough, though I do think they're burying the lede:
I got a DM on Monday from someone who said, “You should follow up on the Tommy Kuhlstory; he DQ’d himself.” As I started reporting the story, I hoped I wasn’t about to dive into another cheating incident. As Kuhl shared what happened later that night, I quickly realized it was the exact opposite. I had a story about what makes golf great.Kuhl was walking with some of his University of Illinois cohorts as they watched teammate Adrien Dumont De Chassart compete in a playoff for the final spot at a U.S. Open local qualifier. The event was being held at Illini Country Club in Springfield, Ill., and Kuhl had made it through, having just set a course record with a 10-under 62. He was on top of the world. But then teammate Jackson Buchanan mentioned how hard it had been putting on the aerated greens. “I felt sick to my stomach,” Kuhl said. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I didn’t tell the rules official.” Kuhl was about to DQ himself.As soon as Buchanan made his comment, Kuhl knew he was probably done. Although the rule for fixing spike marks has been changed, the rule for fixing aeration marks has not. “Correct unless a local rule is enacted,” rules official Todd Bailey told me. Kuhl said he made multiple repairs, adding, “I should know better. It comes down to me. I should know that rule.” Kuhl immediately sought out the rules official, explaining what he had done. Soon after, he was informed he had been disqualified. His dream of playing in the U.S. Open will have to wait at least another year.
I certainly didn't know that we're not allowed to fix aeration holes, but at least Geoff gets it:
Which begs the question, who missed a memo that a U.S. Open qualifying was coming and punched the greens?
All I know is that holding U.S. Open qualifying on punched greens is the perfect over-reaction from the organization that gave us those Shinnecock greens. Phil, would that qualify as another dick move?
That said, watch and root for Tommy Kuhl, who is welcome in my fourball any time.
That's all for today, kids. Light blogging until PGA Championship week....
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