Friday, August 25, 2023

Late-Week Lamentations - SweatEx Cup Edition

Got a few bits for you, then we'll let you start your weekend.....

East Lake Fireworks - I saw a little of the early coverage, but didn't see those kind of scores out there:

On a sweltering hot day, Adam Schenk torched East Lake Golf Club in his Tour Championship debut to the tune of 7-under 63. Yet he still got beat by two strokes in his pairing with fellow competitor Collin Morikawa.

“It sounds bad to say, but I’ve never won out here, so I guess I get kind of used to losing a little bit,” Schenk said. “But I played great, he just played a little better.”

If it makes Schenk feel any better, the 26-year old Morikawa posted his career-low on the PGA Tour, a sizzling 9-under 61 that was as hot as the temperature. Morikawa, who entered the week at No. 24 in the FedEx Cup, began the tournament at 1 under and 9 strokes behind FedEx Cup leader Scottie Scheffler in the staggered start. By the time the day was over he was in the thick of the trophy hunt, tied with Keegan Bradley, who shot 63, and Viktor Hovland (68) for the lead at 10 under.

Scheffler (71) led by as many as five strokes on the front nine but hit it in the water and made a triple bogey at 15 to squander his lead. At the conclusion of the Tour Championship, the player with the lowest stroke total over 72 holes when combined with FedEx Cup Starting Strokes, will be crowned the FedEx Cup champion.:

Of course, the gods of style books are angry, as you'll note the writer has to tell us both what the guy shots and where that leaves him on the leaderboard, whish is usually the same thing after the first round.  Despite Scheffler's cock-up, he's only one shot off the pace.  That's the good news.... the bad news is that they're still going to make him putt for the next three days, so perhaps avert your gaze...

This header of course caught my eye:

Five years into the Tour Championship’s staggered start, there’s still one obvious flaw

Only one?  I guess you haven't watched it recently....

In 2019, the PGA Tour introduced a handicapping system to structure the leaderboard for the 30
players who qualified for the FedEx Cup finale at East Lake. A quick reminder, FedEx Cup leader Scottie Scheffler will start Thursday’s first round at 10 under par, with Viktor Hovland at eight under and Rory McIlroy at seven under. The scores then regress down to where the final five in the standings start at even par.

“I don't think it's the best, but it is the easiest to understand,” said Jon Rahm, who’ll start at six under par.

So, where's the problem?

There’s one problem with the format though—the Official World Golf Ranking don’t recognize the Tour Championship winner if he doesn’t shoot the lowest 72-hole score.

Really?  You mean if the winner of the Tour Championship was in a police line-up, that the folks at the OWGR wouldn't be able to pick him out?  Because that's what you wrote, such are journalistic standards these days.

What the idiot meant to say is that OWGR people have taken the radical view that points should be awarded for actual play, so they do so for this event based upon what the guys actually shoot.  Based upon this sentence, the reader would be within his rights to assume that the winner might get stiffed on any OWGR points.  The fault, of course, being with the clown car format, not the OWGR, except for the fact that they shouldn't be awarding points for any events with a 30-player field.

It's Not The Heat - I was gonna let this one go, but no one else is....  First, a confession, that I stole my header from this tweet:

Then Lucas Glover teed off and the Golf Channel announcers indicated that they had high expectations for Lucas this week.  Oh, not his hot putter or first-rate ball striking, but rather harkening back to Memphis:

Are you familiar with the term "Swamp ass"?  I can't give you a language of origin, but I can show you its usage:

Isn't this why we have Golf Twitter?   What exactly is SA?

What Is Swamp Ass? Swamp ass (or swampass), Dagobah diaper, or pants puddles is when moisture and sweat builds up between your cheeks and embarrassingly appears through your clothing. This build up of sweat and moisture is the perfect environment for bacteria to live in, causing an itchy, irritated and smelly mess.

Not only did this generate a plea for mercy from Paige Spirinac, but we have a nominee for the Swamp Ass GOAT:


That's Robert Garrigus from, irony alert, the FedEx St. Jude Classic in Memphis, though this was in June 2010.   

For years I had good fun at the expense of the PGA of America, who took their August event to Shoal Creek, Valhalla, Tulsa, Atlanta Athletic Club and Kiawah, forcing America to watch Tim Herron in sweat-soaked golf shirts.  Now August is devoted to the FedEx Cup and, of the three events, they hold two of them in Memphis and Atlanta.  Must be global warming, eh?

Warning Shots - I'm late to this story, but you may have caught this from Chicago last week:

Introducing real-time betting to the PGA Tour was always going to be a gamble, pardon the pun. Last Saturday at the BMW Championship outside Chicago, a fan at Olympia Fields berated Chris Kirk on the 17th green and moments later yelled “pull it” during playing partner Max Homa’s putting stroke. Homa later told reporters a fan said they bet $3 on him to make his putt, and that he called the fan “a clown” as he walked off the green. 

Jon Rahm says this is nothing new:

“I feel like we hear it every single round,” the Masters champion said Tuesday at the Tour Championship. “It's very present. In golf, spectators are very close, and even if they're not directly talking to you, they're close enough to where if they say to their buddy, ‘I bet you 10 bucks he's going to miss it,’ you hear it. Luckily golf fans are pretty good for the most part and you're hearing the positive, ‘I’ve got 20 bucks you make birdie here.’”

But, Jon, I'm pretty sure no one in Ponte Vedra Beach cares:

Rahm said a plan for policing it needed to happen sooner rather than later.

“In a game like this where you're allowed to have your favorites, but it's not a team aspect, it's not a home team against a visiting team, I think the tour maybe should look into it because you don't want it to get out of hand, right?” he said. “It's very, very easy in golf if you want to affect somebody. You're so close, you can yell at the wrong time, and it's very easy for that to happen.

“I think they [PGA Tour] could look into it, but at the same time, it would be extremely difficult for the tour to control 50,000 people scattered around the golf course. It's a complicated subject. You don't want it to get out of control, but you also want to have the fans to have the experience they want to have.”

Just yesterday we had Jay Monahan talking about growing his data business.  Can anyone tell me who the customers for such data are?  Yup, at every turn, the Tour will maximize revenue, regardless of the potential affect on the product.  So, Jon, the Tour is going to do that which it does best, nothing but endorse checks.

Jon might want to get with the Live Under Par™ program...

Shall we cover those cups a little... Beginning with the biggie.

When In Rome - There's no real news here, just a holding pattern until Tuesday in Frisco.  Brooks Koepka has fallen to seventh in the points ranking, though I haven't found anyone in the wild that thinks he won't be selected.  Interestingly, though, two guys are making an argument against, first Brandel Chamblee:

“The reasons for him to be on the team are pretty obvious, right?” he told analyst Brad Faxon
during Sunday’s Live From show following Koepka’s PGA win. “He’d make the team better. He’d make the Ryder Cup more compelling. But the reasons for him not to be on the team I think are pretty obvious, too. Don’t you think it would be a bit of a slap in the face to the players that didn’t go, that didn’t take the money and go to LIV, that somebody who took the money could now have their cake and eat it too? And in playing on the Ryder Cup team, would it not in some way elevate LIV, make it more legitimate?”

“Koepka being on the Ryder Cup is a referendum on LIV,” he said. “It will be nothing else. It will be non-stop tweets from bots and everyone that supports LIV about how great this is for LIV, more than about being about the Ryder Cup, more than the philanthropic aspect of the PGA Tour or the PGA of America.”

More legitimate than Jay Monahan has made it?  Kind of fighting a war that's already been lost, no?

Koepka and Chamblee have history, which you can revisit at the link, though I'm not sure that's what at issue here.  It's more Brandel making a point that through June 5th would have us all cheering, but he doesn't seem to have accepted the tectonic shift that occurred the next day.

Here's a better one, a purported letter from Captain Zach Johnson:

So when I looked at Brooks and considered a place for him on this team, the same thoughts washed over me. He turned his back on American golf and the leading American golf institution, the PGA Tour. He turned his back on Hogan and Arnold and Big Jack. The Ryder Cup is all about

American golf, the PGA of America, the PGA Tour. LIV Golf isn’t a sports institution. It’s an ATM for a small group of coddled golfers. It doesn’t stand for anything, except entertainment. I don’t think of golf as entertainment. I don’t think of the Ryder Cup as entertainment. We’re not wearing costumes. We’re wearing team uniforms. This is golf’s ultimate team competition.

I see this as a chance for me to make a statement about my own values. I don’t believe in blind loyalty. I do believe in loyalty to the institutions that have helped make you and have earned your loyalty. I believe playing on a Ryder Cup team is a reward. I believe that every member of the team has to be able to say that he is putting the team’s needs ahead of his own. That’s not easy for any professional golfer to do, but the starting point of our U.S. team is that we represent American golf. We represent the PGA Tour. We represent the PGA of America. That is our core value. Brooks ran for the money. That is not a value I can relate to.

This letter is a Mike Bamberger fever dream, but it comes across to this observer as empty virtue-signaling.  While both Brandel and Mike have been consistent voices against LIV and Saudi Arabia, that battle is mostly lost.

What I find bizarre in this is that both frame their argument as a defense of our golfing institutions, the PGA Tour and PGA of America, ignoring that its those very institutions that betrayed us.  Mike is putting his trust in Zach Johnson, who is a product of and beholden to the very organization that is trying to sell out its birthright.  And yet, they both seem to exhibit this naïve trust that elements with these organizations will defend themselves, ignoring how deep the rot has progressed.

Perhaps the most off-key portion of Mike's putative letter is this note above it:

The draft begins with a note.

J.—Is this too much? Not enough? Lemme know. Gonna run it by T, too.—Z.

(J is, presumably, Julius Mason, the top spokesperson for the PGA of America. Or, it could be Jay Monahan, the commissioner of the PGA Tour. If you don’t know who T is, we can’t help you.)

Mike is still bitterly clinging to his belief that Tiger, who he recently called a Buy-American guy, would support keeping Brooksie off the team.  The reality is more depressing, that Tiger has stepped up to ensure that the top players get theirs, not to queer the deal.

Those two, alas, don't have a monopoly on revisionist history:

Poor baby!  

Again like so many others, Casey feels that the Ryder Cup has been damaged by what has gone on the last 18 months.

“That was never anyone’s intent,” he says. “But it has to be fixed. (DP World Tour chief executive) Keith Pelley has admitted that. He’s had conversations with people I know and he has admitted that. They have a captain issue in the future. I love that Luke is captain. I know him well and he has my respect. I want him to be a great captain, which he will be win, lose or draw.

“The Ryder Cup is so valuable in terms of what it gives to golf in Europe, not just monetarily. We don’t want that to be damaged any more than it has been already. I don’t watch a lot of golf outside of the majors. But I will certainly watch the Ryder Cup. And I might just have a piece of Euro team clothing on under my top. I won’t have the commentary on though,” he said with a laugh.

Let me see if I follow, Paul.  You cashed a large check from an entity that's business model was to destroy the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour, but now you have a sad on?  The article goes on and Casey describes his personal reasons for jumping to LIV, so he's just another a******e who puts his own needs above those of his tours and his mates, but shouldn't be held responsible because...reasons.

I used to like Casey because I though he was one of the few that understood what a lucky bastard he is.  he might have no regrets, though he's caused me to regret misjudging him.

The Auld Grey Toon - We had the U.S. team a few days ago, here is your GB&I roster, not that any of us actually know these young men:

James ASHFIELD – Wales, Delamere Forest, 22 – WAGR #71
Jack BIGHAM – England, Harpenden, 19 – WAGR #88
Barclay BROWN – England, Hallamshire, 22 – WAGR #25
John GOUGH – England, The Berkshire, 24 – WAGR #11
Connor GRAHAM – Scotland, Blairgowrie, 16 – WAGR #184
Alex MAGUIRE – Ireland, Laytown & Bettystown, 22 – WAGR #149
Matthew MCCLEAN – Ireland, Malone, 30 – WAGR #52
Liam NOLAN – Ireland, Galway, 23 – WAGR #143
Mark POWER – Ireland, Kilkenny, 23 – WAGR #94
Calum SCOTT – Scotland, Nairn, 20 – WAGR #35

While Ryder Cup selections are reasonably transparent, both side in the Walker Cup seem to prefer those smoke-filled rooms.  A few years back Sam Burns waited to turn pro so he could play in the event, only to be inexplicably spurned by the USGA.  This time the controversy is across the pond:

Huggan can hold a grudge: 

Yeah, that was tough one....

The appeal here is the venue.  The young me are plenty talented, but we have a unique opportunity to see match play on the most interesting golf course on the planet.  And kudos to the USGA and R&A for choosing venues of such interest, the next installment being at Cypress Point.

Club de Golf Finca Cortesin - That's in Spain, gang, where they will hold the Solheim Cup in three weeks.  The ladies got a little jammed up with the Ryder Cup going back to odd years after the pandemic, and they will actually hold a Solheim Cup in 2024 to avoid competing with the Ryder Cup, an obvious losing proposition.

The Solheim Cup is actually good fun, far more interesting than the Presidents Cup, for the simple reason that there's actual bad blood between the teams.  That frisson makes it a good watch, though it is of course kind of a silly event, pitting the U.S. against Europe when either side would get crushed by a South Korean team.

The U.S. team currently looks like this under their bifurcated qualification process:


Captain Stacey Lewis gets three picks after this week's LPGA event in Canada, but everyone listed above will likely be in Spain.  There's a long dissertation on the rugby scrum to fill out the roster here. 

I can't find a simple list to copy-and-paste, but the European team, including their captain's picks, can be found here.

Suzann Pettersen, the European captain, has played a starring role in the incidents which have led to the bad blood between the teams, so that could be interesting.....  Still not sure she understands what she did wrong in the most famous of those incidents, but we'll save that history lesson for closer to the event.

Hasve a great weekend and I'll catch you on Monday.

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