Thursday Threads - Gale Force Edition

It's a light week of blogging, though that I hope doesn't deter you from checking in on the ladies playing the Old Course this week.  I shan't tax myself too much, but we'll hit a couple of high points, then declare the weekend has commenced.

The Open Championship, Distaff Edition - We saw the build-out during our day on the Old Course way back on August 3rd, but we were in shorts and vests.  These girls seem to have dug a bit deeper into their closets:

Shack leads yesterday's post with this weather update, in which the improvement in confidence isn't necessarily an improvement in the underlying conditions:

Be careful what you wish for ladies.

Several combatants in this week’s AIG Women’s Open have admirably sung the praises of links golf, creativity and even the comedic qualities of facing a five-club wind. We may need to check back with them Thursday night now that The Met Office has dumped the low confidence labels and predicted a wild 49th playing over the Old Course at St Andrews.

“The forecast is sort of settling down to being pretty windy (Thursday), particularly (Thursday),” said R&A CEO Martin Slumbers in noting a “small but realistic chance” of 40 to 45 m.p.h. winds during the round.”

I’d call that pretty windy.

“We have slowed the golf course down quite a bit,” Slumbers continued. “We've raised the height of cut on the greens. We've put a bit of water on them to help them grow a little bit. We've got some pretty good ideas about where we can put the pins to actually protect it as much as we possibly can.”

Who are the mudders on the LPGA?  Also, in wind it doesn't hurt to be short and skinny...

He's got all sorts of graphics, sepcifically designed to make your humble blogger's job less taxing:

 

They've slowed the joint down because of 2015, when play was suspended at the Open on the Old Course, while every surrounding course remained playable for recreational players.  Hmmm, why do we think that might have happened?

Love seeing great players battle the fans, but this to me is a bit disappointing:

Slumbers said the wind direction will largely come from the same southwest and westerly directions to at least rule out—theoretically—a dreaded scenario of facing winds going out and coming in.

“The good news is the wind is forecast all four days to come from pretty much the same quadrant, so we know where we can put the pins to give them some room.”

Good news for picking pins, not so great if you’re trying to win the final major of 2024 given the already complex nature of the Old Course.

These massive greens have plenty of pin locations, it's just that the joy of links golf is in seeing how the course changes when the wind shifts.  

In his prior day's post, Geoff reported on final qualifying, played at a venue that may have arisen a time or two  in these pages:

Field Filled Out At Crail

Twelve players secured their place in the Women’s Open at St Andrews through Final Qualifying Monday, with another 12 having to decide the final three spots.

Weiwei Zhang of China led the qualifiers with five-under-par 67 at Crail Golfing Society’s Craighead Links. She finished one clear Casandra Alexander, Annabell Fuller, Kristen Gillman and Emma Grechi, who each posted four-under-par 68’s.

Lauren Hartlage, Noora Komulainen, Lee-Anne Pace and Patricia Schmidt tied for sixth with 70’s that put them in this week’s field.

A sudden death play-off of 12 players saw Jodi Ewart Shadoff, Stephanie Meadow and Ursula Wikstrom prevail.

Crail?  Where have I heard that name before....

Should you notice any loss of focus at this juncture, it may be because we've hit 7:00 and coverage from St. Andrews has begun on USA.  The winds are whipping, but the sun is out as well.

We should give this nice youngish lady a call-out:

Scotland’s Matthew Playing Her Final Open

In other news, next week’s Curtis Cup captain Catriona Matthew announced Wednesday that

she’s playing her final Women’s Open.

“It just felt that being in St Andrews in Scotland, the home of golf, what better place to play my last one," Matthew said. “In a way it's a mixture of relief, knowing it's my last one, I'll be a little sad not to be in the event, it's so big now, there is such a buzz when you come to these events to play in them."

The 55-year-old Matthew won the AIG Women’s Open in 2009 only 11 weeks after giving birth to her second child. She recorded six top 10’s in 23 starts. The North Berwick resident tees off Thursday at 7:33 a.m. with Karrie Webb and Stacy Lewis.

A Muirfield Open might have been more on point, but this is pretty special as well...

Shack includes a lengthy selection of quotes from the ladies.... care to sample a few?

Defending champion Lilia Vu on links golf: “I think as we're able to narrow it down to the shot in front of you, you zone in and just play one shot at a time and not get too far ahead of yourself. Everyone is going to make mistakes. It's just whoever makes the least mistakes out here.”

Vu on the Old Course. “You just don't ever get over that feeling of other past players being there and so much golf has been played here.”

Well, only since c1400.... 

Korda on links golf: “You can prepare all you want. You can play Monday through Wednesday

but then, you know, it's all about the weather and taking it a shot at a time, being very present. And it's also fun because it's a different creative side to golf where you have to work the ball sometimes more than you're used to when you're hitting different shots, bump-and-runs. It's just a little bit more creative and for me that's fun to do.”

Nelly Korda on the Old Course. “I love the history of the golf course. So far I've really enjoyed playing every single day and I don't have anything bad to say about it.”

Oh, you will before the week is through....  

Lydia Ko on returning to St Andrews. “When I came here in 2013 I remember I visited the

castle and did all the touristy things. I’ve got family here this week so we’ve been ticking off all the restaurants with high reviews and you’ve got to have fish and chips as well. A lot of things off the course revolve around food for me, it really excites me. I want to enjoy the little things.”

Ko on links golf. “Muirfield was a time where I stepped off after the Women’s Open and thought I really enjoyed that and it’s been more and more fun since. Before, I got more frustrated that it was windy and rainy. I love how you have to be creative when you play links golf, numbers are sometimes very irrelevant.”

Do we think that Mark W. sent her his St. Andrews restaurant list?  I do hope she had an evening at a window table at Seafood Ristorante. 

And a final grab bag:

Stacy Lewis on the weather. “There's a lot of people when they get off the plane and they see the weather, it's not going to fit them. But I get excited about it. I see the weather. I see the forecast. I'm ready. I'm excited.”

Lewis on how the Old Course is playing. “The biggest difference is in the golf course itself and how much softer it's playing than 2013. I look back at the old yardage book and the pictures and it was much more brown. The ball was running a whole lot more. The golf course plays very different when it's wet like this. So, you take as much local knowledge as you can.”

Charley Hull on playing the Old Course. “I teed it up on the back nine yesterday morning and as you walk down 17 and 18 you get goosebumps. It's pretty cool.”

Scotland’s Gemma Dryburgh on playing the Women’s Open in her home country. “It's what dreams are made of, really, playing in Scotland and at the Home of Golf. It's a place where I've come to a lot as a kid and it's a pretty special place for anyone.”

Three-time champion Karrie Webb on links golf: “It takes me out of my technical mind and gets me being more creative and hitting shots that you don't normally hit. And I don't think judging the wind is as precise as it can be on the other golf courses. I think just here it's all feel and visualizing different shots.”

Yanno, they make this links golf thing sound so enticing that perhaps I shoud give it a go?

Lastly, om a more substantive note:

Martin Slumbers on the field’s Old Course experience. “We take for granted that the men have played here since they were young boys playing in international events. Nelly has never

played a competitive round around here. I think I'm right in saying that 30 of the top 50 have never played a competitive round around here. I'm excited to see them. This is the Home of Golf. It is arguably the most important golf course in the world. I think we're going to enjoy watching them play.”

Slumbers on a Women’s Open rota taking shape. “We have historically gone with the men's game to St Andrews more often, and I think you'll see us come back [to St Andrews] more often, as well, with the women's game…you're going to increasingly see us use exactly the same venues as we use for The Open, with one exception that we will probably want to have periodically a championship in the London area, for reasons -- it's primarily linked to one of the byproducts of this is trying to grow young people to play -- more women to play golf, and there are more women golfers down in the south of England than in Scotland, so we'll take advantage of that to lean into.”

Well, Sunningdale doesn't suck....

 I'll just leave you with this great photo from Geoff:

Why I Hate These Guys, Part CCXXVI - Yanno, if I were the agent for one of these guys, the strongest advice I'd give is to NEVER talk about money.  Because they keep telling us it's not about the money, but the frequency and intensity of how they speak about money leads this observer to the inevitable conclusion...

Xander Schauffele went down this dangerous path, and sycophantic writers are crediting him for being some kind of truth-teller, even while ignoring the massive whoppers.  Think I'm kidding?

“What, am I early?” he asked. “I usually wait for most of you guys to clear out.”

It was a fitting line from Schauffele. The assembled group of reporters laughed; the World No. 2 is low-key funny. But he was also telling the truth; the World No. 2 tends not to lie, even when he is poking fun. After all, he does tend to schedule his press conferences for 3 or 4 or 5 p.m., by which time other players have spoken and other news has broken and the occupants of media centers have grown otherwise occupied.

Really, then why are they so disingenuous when the M-word arises?  This is that very same Xander Schauffele perpetuating the Big Lie:

By most objective measures, earning over $40 million in a calendar year qualifies as a pretty

good thing, and Schauffele certainly isn’t arguing that point. In fact, by the PGA Tour’s standards, it would qualify as the most money earned in a single season ever. That’s comparable to a mid-tier starting quarterback in the NFL — pretty good for a sport with one-tenth of the NFL’s annual TV revenue.

But during an unusually expansive press availability on Wednesday at the BMW, Schauffele seemed confused by it all. Golf’s money has exploded, he argued, but it’s still nowhere near its pro sports counterparts.

“You look at the top-10 quarterbacks,” Schauffele said. “Scottie [Scheffler] has won seven times, I think that’s including Olympic gold. And he’s made significantly more than everyone else.”

“You look at the No. 1 quarterback, he’s getting $60 million and then the No. 10 quarterback is getting 52, and then No. 15 is getting 39 or 40.”

Schauffele’s point rings true, but he seemed to be hinting at a bigger hypocrisy. Why is chasing cash in golf considered greedy when the NFL hands out considerably more?

Well, Xander, the first answer is that, if you're so pure, why are you deliberately obscuring your comparison?  How much did that tenth ranked quarterback get paid for the logos on his uniform?  How much did he get paid for the football he plays?

Touring professionals have always made more money off the course than on, yet those numbers are never included when they talk money, hence it's the BIG LIE™.  Golf has always had this bifurcated compensation structure reflecting the difference between golf and other sports, whereby the economic value derives from the 25 million souls losing golf balls.  But, when they compare themselves to other sports, those tens of millions of dollars are never included.

Sportico has the ultimate rebuttal, the list of all-time compensation of athletes.  Check out Nos. 11 and 15, and consider how that correlates with their seething anger:

Do golfers seem underpaid?  It's laughable....

I'll also re4mind you that Xander was prepared to skip the Ryder Cup over Netflix or some such nonsense, so maybe some enterprising reporter would show him that list above.

As an addendum, I ran across Sportico's compensation list for 2023, on which Tiger Woods was the 14th highest paid athlete of the year.  Considering that his on-course winnings were about zero, does that tell you how big a lie is being shoved down out throats?

Also remember who Xander's best friend on Tour is, the man who's Ryder Cup was defined by whining about not being paid for his hat logo.  So, Xander, I'm confused.  Apparently there off-course revenue sources matter, except when they don't?  

Back to Xander, and we now he['s lying because his lips are moving:

But during an unusually expansive press availability on Wednesday at the BMW, Schauffele seemed confused by it all. Golf’s money has exploded, he argued, but it’s still nowhere near its pro sports counterparts.

Looks pretty damn comparable to me, especially when you consider the disparity in viewership.  And it seems like it always has been generous, judging from Arnie and Jack's presence on that list.  But maybe the best part is this, in which one of the biggest money-grubbers on Tour takes time out from counting his shekels to explain whose fault it really is:

“The media has been an interesting thing to me the last two or three years,” Schauffele said, asked about the increasingly hot topic of money in pro golf. “The news that I do read, it’s funny, it’s really negative. It’s painted really negatively in golf, which is fine. I think people like to hate on anything these days.

Yeah, Xander, that's the ticket!   There's a reason I'll be watching the ladies this week, and what happens at Castle Pines is of no interest to me.  But I totally believe you that it's not about the money.....because Patrick and you are truth-tellers.

Have a great weekend, everyone, and we'll pick things up next week.