Weekend Wrap - Era of Scottie Edition

Finally the Face Plant Tour™ delivers a keeper.... Though still can't get my head around a grown man preferring to be called Scottie..... Don't be trying that with your humble blogger.

Who Ya Got at Augusta? - You know you'll have to take someone else in your Masters pool, as we'll see odds on Scheffler shorter than we've seen since you-know-who.

But this might be a bit premature:

Players Championship: Welcome to the age of Scottie Scheffler

I'm as impressed as anyone, but perhaps we should just go ahead and hold the Masters anyway?  I mean, it seems that Scottie will never lose again, and yet.... How quickly they forget that it's still golf.

Shockingly, the Tour Confidential panel, which last week had no time for Scottie's Bay Hill rout, seems to have noticed:

Scottie Scheffler became the first back-to-back winner in Players Championship history, closing with an eight-under 64 on Sunday at TPC Sawgrass to beat Xander Schauffele, Wyndham Clark and Brian Harman by one. Battling neck issues all week, Scheffler was

seven back through 15 holes on Saturday, cut the deficit to five after 54 holes and opened his final round with a five-under 31 on the front nine. He then waited in the practice area as three stars tried to force a playoff by birdieing the 18th but failed. Was this Scheffler’s most impressive victory yet?

Zephyr Melton: I’d say yes, if only because he was battling injury for much of the week. A stiff neck might not seem like a huge deal, but it did impact his ball speed at times. Being able to perform at a high level — complete with a Sunday 64 — in spite of operating at less than 100 percent is incredibly impressive. Oh, and he gained strokes on the field with his putter. Hard to argue against this being one of the best weeks of Scottie’s career.

Ryan Barath: As they say, “Beware the injured golfer,” and in the case of Scottie Scheffler, I think his sore neck just added to his play-smart mentality, which through 72 holes made the difference. Considering the group of players in the mix on Sunday, Scottie did what Scottie did best and played to his strengths. One of the standout moments of his round was the birdie he made on the 9th after hitting the green in two. He made an aggressive run at eagle that left him just over 10 feet for birdie, and it was such a confident stroke that it went in dead center.

Josh Sens: What’s most impressive to me isn’t that he did it with a patch on his neck but as the defending champ for the second week in a row: successful title defenses, one after the other, and the first champion ever to repeat at the Players. That’s not just a physical feat. That’s some crazy mental strength and stamina.

Yeah, if Scottie is gaining strokes with his putter....  Because we know he's not giving any back with those other thirteen.

Still, easy to get ahead of ourselves:

Scheffler now has eight wins in his last 26 months, including two in 2024. With the major season just around the corner, could we be in for Scheffler’s best year yet? What’s obtainable for him?

Melton: Scottie is (finally) rolling the rock, and that’s bad news for the rest of the PGA Tour. He proved at TPC Sawgrass that last week was no fluke and again beat one of the best fields in pro golf. If he stays hot with the putter, we could be witnessing the beginning of an all-time great season.

Barath: Scottie with a hot putter is hard to beat. He gained .630 strokes on Sunday and 1.246 for the tournament, which is nothing crazy by any means and still only slightly above average. But this kind of play over the last couple of weeks can only be a confidence boost, and he’s clearly the guy to beat the rest of the year.

Sens: My colleagues have pretty much covered it. It’s gotten to the point where we can pretty much count on Scheffler contending, even when his putter is less than white hot. He’ll rightly be the favorite in every event he enters. I’d be surprised if he doesn’t win at least one major in 2024. So, yeah, I’m banking on this being his biggest season yet.

Not doing him any favors here, especially as it's only been two weeks with that new putter.  Still, he's been a good putter at every stage of his development, so it's the poor putting that might be the outlier.  But just remember, this all comes with an asterisk.....

We haven't featured much of Geoff recently (I suspect he's working on some other project because his Quad posts have been sporadic), but he compiles some impressive data:

• Sunday’s final round 64 was his 45th bogey-free round since 2020 and continues Scheffler’s 2024 streak of 27 straight under-par rounds. (I don’t care how juiced the equipment is or how magnificent the conditions are or how many players bang behind the ball to improve their lie: that’s incredible!)

• Scheffler’s 8-under-par closing 64 marked his eighth consecutive at TPC Sawgrass round of 69 or better. Pete AND Alice are spinning!

• Scheffler’s worst score this year was a how-could-he-let-this-happen third round, two-under-par-71 at Kapalua.

• His eighth career win ties Scheffler for most wins since the 2019-20 season with a former Tour member going by the initials J.R. who is currently planning Legion GC 13’s April invasion of inland Miami.

• Scheffler’s win from five back easily surpasses his previous best come-from-behind win from two strokes back.

 And these bits are eye-opening:

• He hit 55/72 greens and 45 of 56 fairways to lead the field in Strokes Gained tee-to-green.

• The putting was serviceable enough by ranking 37th in strokes gained with 280’9” of putts made.

• Scheffler had just 26 and 25 putts for the weekend rounds and was 13 of 17 scrambling from the greens he missed.

• SG: Tee-to-Green: 1st; SG: Off-the-Tee: 1st; Driving Accuracy: 1st; Greens hit: 3rd; SG: Approach: 7th.

This to me is his model, and slightly different than Bay Hill in that his putting was middle-of-the-pack stuff.  He only needs to be average with the flat blade, and it's hard to imagine he can't do that.

Geoff also had this, which manages to capture the man's footwork:

 Of course, the Tour will be declaring victory for their Signature Events Money Grabs:

Some of the Tour’s biggest names (including its last two major champs) battled it out on Sunday afternoon at TPC Sawgrass, giving the Tour some much-needed juice in its marquee event at a time when, due to LIV Golf, its fields have been weakened over the last couple of years. How important was the star power and exciting finish to boot for PGA Tour brass?

Melton: The start to the 2024 season did not go as the Tour brass likely envisioned. Through the first two months, the biggest stars were largely no-shows (save for Wyndham Clark at Pebble). These last two weeks have been a different story. That’s now two Sundays in a row that we’ve had legitimate drama on the back nine with some of the best players in the world duking it out. It’s a refreshing change of pace. Here’s hoping it continues into major season.

Barath: The PGA Tour absolutely needed this week to go well, and I don’t think they could have scripted it any better. Fantastic weather for all four days, a course that played tough but rewarded those playing well, big names showing up in a big way, and it all coming down to the 18th hole with multiple players trying to get into a playoff. If this is the kind of energy the PGA Tour and its broadcast partners can bring to the rest of the Signature Events (and even regular Tour events) the product is going to stand out in a big way.

Sens: This was a fun week, but then again, it usually is. Events like the Players represent the best leverage the Tour has over LIV: events with a history behind them, held on cool venues. But we knew that already, and a great week at Sawgrass doesn’t solve the Tour’s lingering problems, including the fact that much of its schedule has nowhere near that kind of allure.

So, everyone is patting themselves on the back over the alpha dogs actually showing up, but has anyone noticed that this is exactly what they tell us they have to avoid.  This was an actual full field event with a cut, yet players with name recognition made it to the top of the leaderboard.

This is the model guys if you care about holding actual events.  Planning to get to this ESPN piece for other reasons, but let me excerpt Viktor's telling comments are spot on here:

Monahan said it was too early to evaluate the signature events, especially after weather disrupted three of the first four. Longtime pro Lucas Glover, a two-time winner last year, called the new model of events "selfish" and a "money grab" because the reduced fields prevent many players from competing for $20 million purses.

"You're getting the best players to play, the top guys to show up, but the fields are more competitive when you have bigger field sizes," reigning FedEx Cup champion Viktor Hovland said. "I think that's just the fact. There's a reason why we're playing the Players Championship with 144 guys.

It's a pretty simple question, methinks.  Should the best events have the best fields?  Or are we holding exhibitions?

Viktor went on to add this:

"But at the end of the day, I don't know what the fans want to watch. Do they want to watch these limited field sizes or do they want to watch the bigger sizes? I really don't know. So, yeah, I just don't know what trajectory we're on."

I've been reliably informed that fans just want to see Patrick get paid....

Geoff has a succinct take on those also-rans:

Pursuers Clark and Schauffele still have plenty to be proud of in defeat.

Harman? He just takes too bloody long to be worth our time.

Can't argue with that last bit, for sure.... Still on the fence about X-man, though his ties to a certain hatless wonder ensure that I'll be rooting against him whenever he's in contention.   

Schauffele’s recent move to Florida still has the San Diego native in the early stages of a coaching switch to Chris Como while keeping der loopy pater ensconced in California. The talent remains there for the Olympic gold medalist to win majors and who seems to be once again setting himself up for a big year (even if the range session after Saturday’s round seemed excessively technical for a guy who was two strokes off the 54-hole TPC Sawgrass scoring record).

Anyway, Sunday’s inability to keep up with Scheffler also moved Schauffele’s career 54-hole lead/co-lead record to 2-for-7.

Christophe Powers was a tad harsh as well:

But my goodness, none of that makes it any less maddening to watch Schauffele come up

painfully short again. He shouldn't have, either. He had six feet for birdie at the iconic 17th hole to match Scheffler's 20-under total, only to miss the putt. And he left an eagle putt two feet short, right in the heart, at the par-5 16th minutes earlier. There was also a missed nine-footer for a must-have par at the 15th hole, his second straight bogey at the worst possible time. It was right there for the taking. Schauffele had it.

Schauffele, unfortunately, has a habit of "having it" and then letting it slip right through his fingers all too often. Sunday's tie for second marked his 13th runner-up finish on the PGA Tour, and this one somehow felt like the most painful of all. Outside of Scheffler, who became the first back-to-back winner in the history of the Players, Schauffele would have been right up there as one of the tour's dream winners as the the LIV v. Tour saga continues to play out. It would have been his biggest win to date, bigger than the 2018 Tour Championship and bigger than his 2021 Olympic gold medal (though that's depending on who you ask).

Chris, do you notice something about those allegedly big wins?   Both feature comically small fields.....

But the bigger issue about the X-man, and the reason my eyes involuntarily roll every time an announcer talks about all his high finishes in big events is:

Of course, one could argue that Schauffele has had more painful gut punches before. He was tied for the 54-hole lead at the 2018 Open Championship at Carnoustie and shot three over to tie for second. At the 2019 Masters, Tiger Woods clipped Schauffele, as well as Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson, by one stroke. Two years later, Schauffele stood on the 16th tee at Augusta National having just cut Hideki Matsuyama's lead to two strokes with four straight birdies. He promptly made a triple and wound up tied for third. The man knows pain.

But the pain has often been self-inflicted.....

But at least he gest off a good line:

Instead, the "Xander can't close" narrative will continue. The haters will be out in full force on social media. Schauffele, taking this one like a champ, as always, says he'll be joining them.

"I'm going to lick my wounds," he said. "I'll probably join them in the Haterade at this moment. It is what it is."

Closing is the hardest thing in the game, especially when you're expected to win.  Still, watch this space.

This Week In The PGA Tour/PIF Dance - It's quite the two step, as this ESPN piece notes:

Answering remaining questions about PGA Tour-Saudi PIF alliance

Starting here:

Why does the PGA Tour need to get a deal done with the PIF?

While there might not be as much urgency for the PGA Tour to strike a deal after it received a $1.5 billion investment from Strategic Sports Group, a consortium of billionaire sports team owners, athletes and others, getting an agreement finalized is probably the best thing for the future health of the sport -- and the tour.

The simple answer is that if the PGA Tour doesn't strike a deal with the PIF, the Saudis will keep poaching its best players. Reigning Masters champion Jon Rahm is the latest star to defect, signing a contract worth more than $300 million in December.

Sure, that's a continuing risk, but it seems to this observer that the Tour has a bigger existential challenge.  We've been reliably informed that the investment of $1.5 billion large solves their problems, though no one seems particularly interested in the issue of where that return on that investment will come from.

The our needs to dramatically ramp up its revenues, quite a challenge when more than half of said revenues are locked down until 2030 (and those rights holders are undoubtedly put off by the declining viewership numbers).  SSG's investment in the short-term will fund operating losses, and that's a problem you can put off for only so long.

Why does the PIF need to strike a deal with the PGA Tour?

For all the money the PIF has spent, and all the noise it has made with its unique format that includes shotgun starts, team and individual competitions, and 54 holes, the league is still struggling to get a foothold in the U.S.

Rahm's new team created some buzz in the offseason, and the return of former Ryder Cup star Anthony Kim from a nearly 12-year hiatus garnered headlines. For the most part, however, LIV Golf's TV ratings in the U.S. haven't improved.

According to data obtained by ESPN, the final round of the LIV Golf tournament in Saudi Arabia on March 1-3 averaged 208,000 viewers in the U.S. There was a seven-hour time difference, and TV coverage in the U.S. started at 3:05 a.m. ET. The final round of the Cognizant Classic in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, which Austin Eckroat won for his first PGA Tour victory, averaged 1.362 million.

Again, missing the forest for the trees.  For all the happy talk about revolutionizing golf, LIV simply doesn't.  That doesn't mean that they can't keep shoveling billions into it, but there is no path to viability.   The Rahm signing was a shock, perhaps, but what did it accomplish for LIV?  There simply isn't enough lipstick for that pig.

My own sense is that you ignore competitive legitimacy at your own peril, as Jay & Co. are experiencing themselves.  

No doubt you've heard of today's confab:

Six sources told Golfweek that the Tour’s player-directors are being strongly encouraged to meet Yasir Al-Rumayyan and that it could happen within days. Two sources said a meeting is

tentatively scheduled for Monday at a private residence in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. The Players Championship concludes on Sunday at nearby TPC Sawgrass. Details of the meeting are being closely guarded and several insiders caution that it’s still unclear if the powerful Saudi investment chief will commit to attending or cancel at the last minute.

Five of the six player-directors on the Tour’s Policy Board — all of whom now also serve on the board of the new for-profit entity, PGA Tour Enterprises — are in the field at the Players: Patrick Cantlay, Jordan Spieth, Adam Scott, Peter Malnati and Webb Simpson. Only Tiger Woods is not competing. Joe Ogilvie, a retired veteran who was added to both boards last week as a liaison to player-directors, plans to arrive in Ponte Vedra Beach Sunday in advance of an Enterprises board meeting scheduled for Tuesday at Tour headquarters.

A meeting between Al-Rumayyan and the players would be intended as an informal ice-breaker in a bid to advance negotiations between the Tour and the PIF, talks which have been largely stalled since the June 6 announcement of a Framework Agreement between the parties. A faction of player-directors remains angered about the secretive process leading to that agreement and are known to be skeptical of a deal with the Saudis, who have poured billions of dollars into LIV Golf.

Patrick Cantlay has confirmed said meeting, and amusingly uses it to attempt to burnish his credentials as a man of the people:

Patrick Cantlay, a player director on the PGA Tour policy board, confirmed the meeting with Sports Illustrated on Sunday and tabbed the event as a meet-and-greet.

“Well, I’ve gotta hear out what they have to say, and I will always do my best to represent the entire membership whenever I am in a meeting in that capacity,” Cantlay told SI after his final round at the Players Championship. “I think more information is always better.”

Sure, if you call those money grabs representing the entire membership.....  Somehow excluding Tour rabbits from the most important events is helping them.  I'm sure they totally get that the only way to grow golf is by paying Patrick...

Amazingly, that's far from the stupidest thing anyone has said about this meeting.  I mean, Rory, have you been into the Kool-Aid?

McIlroy wants players to understand that Al-Rumayyan “wants to do the right thing” with his investment in golf and that he wants to be involved “in a productive way.”

“I think I’ve said this before, I have spent time with Yasir and his. … the people that have represented him in LIV I think have done him a disservice, so Norman and those guys,” McIlroy said of his perception of the difference between the PIF and LIV. “I see the two entities, and I think there’s a big, I actually think there’s a really big disconnect between PIF and LIV. I think you got PIF over here and LIV are sort of over here doing their own thing. So the closer that we can get to Yasir, PIF and hopefully finalize that investment, I think that will be a really good thing.”

I mean, WTF!  Pay no attention to those kidnapping allegations or mass beheadings, Yasir is all about growing our game.... Seriously, Rory, it's long past time for you to go away.

Which reminds of nothing so much as this meme:

‘If only Stalin knew’

Yeah, Rory, if only Yasir knew what was being done in his name..... Good luck with that distinction between good bonecutters and bad....

On that note I shall release you and focus on my ski day.  Catch you again midweek...