Da' Cliffs

Wow!  OK, I know I might have used that already, but the repertoire is limited....

Cabot Cliffs is like no other course I can recall, though portions of it strongly evoke obvious reference points.  There's only one large property sitting between the two Cabot courses, but there's a world of difference.  It's for now a minimalist affair there, with only two yurts providing for a pro shop and snack bar, though ground has been broker for a proper clubhouse.

The first impression is of being on bluffs above the ocean, very similar to the first two courses at Bandon Dunes.  Though you'll likely agree that this sitting area was a curious choice:

A few Adirondack chairs?  Sure....  Just really odd, though no doubt a pleasant spot for a post-round adult beverage.

Did I say minimalist?  This is the starter's accommodations:

But as long as they have the chocolate chip cookies protected from the elements, what else do we need?  The other early observation was of the firmness of the turf, far more so than at their sister course.  

The course is a standard issue Par 72.... well, nothing is standard, as there are a mere six Par-4's.  We'll find six of each flavor out there, three of each on both nines.  

Our day starts cloudy, with the possibility of rain in the early going.  We head south of the first tee, into the prevailing wind, and one is immediately confronted with the governing design philosophy, width.  Always a good idea in wind and for resort play, but I do mean really wide.  This of the unique second hole will demonstrate:

Centerline hazards are all the rage these days, though typically that concept relates to fairway hazards.  Here Coore and Crenshaw used that massive natural bunker to protect the green, offering egress from a wide variety of angles.  

Unfortunately for Employee No. 2, that bunker that defines the hole claimed a victim:

But we needn't dwell....

This was of interest to your humble observer:

The Marram grasses are prevalent in Ireland, most notably just off the fairway on the Glashedy Links at Ballyliffin.  I'll spare you the dissertation for now, but it's evil stuff and a graveyard for golf balls, and I'm amused that they think it should be kept away from my line of play.... If only.

The fourth hole also draws interest, the first one-shotter but with a twist.  See if you can suss it out:

To Theresa's left is a second green, longer but reportedly easier than the one to which we played, used on alternate days. 

The fifth is a great cape hole, I'll use the image from the website:

It's great because the green is a straight shot off the tee, just a mere 400 yards.... also great because of the green complex:

And I'm not at all bitter that Theresa got a free drop when she launched her third shot over the right bunker....  Environmentally sensitive, my ass!  Everything else played as a lateral, so I'm unclear as to why they didn't do the same here.

The seventh hole takes the players inland towards the woods, and here the comparison has to be with Coore and Crenshaw's Bandon Trails, where the architect uses all the tricks of the trade to mask the transition.  This is our playing partner on the 7th tee:

In terms of our little match, it was a mirror image of the prior day's.  This time I jumped out to a sizable lead, 3-up at the turn, and Tessie used the early holes of the back nine to claw her way back.  She was able to even up the match, but was then forcefully repelled.... or something.

But as we were playing the eighth, a Par-5 running parallel to the first, something struck me.  We were clearly playing into the fan, meaning that the wind had done a 180 on us.  Andrew, our caddie, noted that this happens with some frequency in September, but it would result in the second nine playing differently than contemplated by the designers.

Care for some more eye candy?

That's the short ninth, a little chip shot at most but we know how difficult such holes can play in the wind.

There's more holes to describe than time available, so let's fast forward to the 12th, a Par-3 of some 233 yards from my tees.  

It looks like nothing special perhaps, but that's 233 into a significant wind.  It would be a completely different kettle of fish downwind, but I was left to try to cut a driver in as my only viable option, as anything shorter seemed destined to run into that front bunker.

Shall we fast forward to our closing holes?  They're a hoot, though with a few quibbles....No. 16 gets most of the press, and you'll quickly intuit why:

Pretty spectacular, and I was quite happy when Andrew suggested the 6-iron, a club I was flushing all day.  Alas, my due diligence was lacking, as it remains unclear whether that was two or the more traditional one club too many.... 

At all times we did heed their warnings:

No. 17 is a driveable Par-4 on which I am forced to suspend judgement due to the unusual wind in which we played.  Here's the intimidating tee shot:

Those are the back tees, but there's not much difference in the angle.  Once you cover the headwall, everything feeds down to the green, as per this schematic:

It's designed to play into the wind, which would likely result in one of those scary pitches off rock-hard turf.  Theresa did drive the green, and was blissfully unaware of what has to be her first eagle putt ever.....  My drive caught the headwall, a tad annoying given that I did actually hit my intended line.  Let me just add that the width is very real and necessary, but that one still needs to hit the fairways.  Missing them is almost a guaranteed lost ball, or at least was in my case.

The finisher would no doubt test the player with the prevailing wind out of the South, but we had it at our back.  The scorecard yardage of 509 for a three-shotter won't sound like much, but the natural contours are used to great effect:

That section where the ocean cuts in short of the green can create a challenging lay-up on the second, though not for us.  I had a mere 185 yards in thanks to that helping wind, though it was quite the disappointing par when I slightly pushed my iron.  

A crazy interesting golf course, one that I do hope to have one more crack at.  With a troubling weather forecast for Tuesday, I'd have inquired about returning to the Cliffs today.  The bride, however, prefers the links, so in the interest if marital comity.....

We eschewed the curious lawn furniture of The Cliffs for something closer to home:

Things that don't suck....

I'll likely have more for you from here, but will ease up now that I've covered both golf courses.  Off to the Links.....

Cabot Links, This Time All of Them

Wow, what a day!  Another warm day with a bluebird sky, a competent caddie to get us through the rough stretches and lovely playing partners...  The whole kit and caboodle, not that I have any idea what a caboodle is....  but it included a little wind, a wee breeze to the locals, but a club-and-a-half worth at times.

The issue of Tessie's tees resolved itself when I consulted the conversion guide in the pro shop, only to discover a set of hybrid tees well suited to the purpose.  On those holes where she played from the so-called women's tees it was still overly short, but at least it had us in reasonable parity.  

Funny what one misses the first go around....  The second green, on the longest Par-3 on the golf course, is far more akin to a Biarritz than I sensed yesterday.  Then my tee ball was to the right of the green, and my sense was that it was a  more conventional two-tiered green.  See what you think, though, as I think the B-word fits:

That's my ball on the front fringe, Madam successfully 2-putted from the depths of the swale.  The early going went all her way, as she played well and.... Well, let's just say that I didn't.  Remember that field of wild flowers of to the right of the third hole?  I deposited two Callaway Chrome Soft X's into the depths thereof, only the easiest hole on the golf course.

This look towards the water features a massive bunker reminiscent of that on the 13th hole at Pacific Dunes:

I must confess that I can't get my fill of the sixth hole with its marina of commercial fishing boats:

Madam won the 8th hole to take a three-up lead, and there were calls for a fork to be stuck in me....  some of those calls coming from your humble correspondent.  That 8th green featured a very linksy demand:

I had all of 51 yards in from this spot, but note the contouring of the green surrounds.  One could play the shot along the ground or lofted softly, though I chose the middle option of bumping it into the hillock short of the pin.  I made my par, but that was insufficient to the task.

I birdied the ninth for the second day in a row to make the turn two down, and clawed my way back to respectability early in the back nine.  Nos. eleven and 12 played into the wind, and on the latter I came up with the linksy shot of the trip, at least to date.  From 210 yards out, I hit a laser of a four-wood that's apex seemed no more than fifteen feet off the ground, mercifully covering the flag the entire way.  Blind squirrel time for sure, but attempting and occasionally pulling off such shots is what makes links golf such a hoot.

No. thirteen turns back downwind, featuring the longest of the forced carries on the course.  Our playing partners took two widely divergent but equally effective routes, first Han straight down the middle:

Then Sho with more left-to-right movement on his ball than one typically finds:

That would be his golf ball just above his hands....  Two young Aussies that found their way to New York and Toronto, respectively, and were great company on the course.  They headed off to drive the Cabot Trail after the round, and we hope to get a scouting report at the Cliffs today, as they're in the group following us.  I'll have to remember to give them an Unplayable Lies business card, as they'll want to see themselves immortalized.

I managed to eke out a 2-up lead as we came to the 16th tee, but there's no quit in our Tessie.  The sixteenth is about as good as it gets, running along the water line.  First, the bride with our caddie Andrew:

Andrew will be with us again today, but is soon off to pl his trade at a fancy new golf club near Melbourne.  A new club that he described as having 100 members and four caddies....  Apparently they do as many as three groups a day.

That sixteenth hole gets my vote for the prettiest green complex:

So perfect it deserves a close-up as well:

But it's more than eye candy, as one can sling a low runner in and watch it feed to that back left pin location.  You'd think that it would have been perfect for your humble blogger, but I chose that moment to thin a 9-iron that ran off the back of the green and might still be moving for all we know.

That Tessie girl made a nice little four-for three, so I'd have been hard pressed to even halve the hole, but still.  And she made an equally good five-for-four on the difficult finishing hole to steal a halve from me.  The most amusing part of that finishing hole was Han hitting the bar/restaurant building with his second shot, which made quite the God-awful sound.

As noted above, we'll get our first look at Cabot Cliffs this morning, the Coore-Crenshaw design that's located a couple of miles north of the Links.  

Dateline: Inverness, Nova Scotia

We have arrived without incident.

After an overnight at Halifax airport, we grabbed our rental car and drove the 3 1/2 hours to Cabot.  The drive itself is uneventful, only as we approached Cape Breton Island did the water reveal itself.  And those views weren't all that spectacular, saving the wows for the resort's own.

The headline from the day was the weather, nothing less than perfect.  Bluebird skies with temps in the mid to upper seventies and just a wee breeze, so a man's thoughts turn towards ..... well, in my case, golf.  When I was a younger man.... but that's not important now.

We hadn't planned to play on our arrival day, but you humble correspondent had been scheming for a few days now....  Before we get to the eye candy, here's a photo of the accommodations:

It's all this genre of two story unassuming structures, built specifically so that all rooms look over the golf course and towards the water.  

Amusingly, each door is inscribed with a golf-related quotation, this being our very own portal:

You'd think he'd been playing Fairview the last few months....

The resort's driving range is at the Cliffs, with shuttle bus service to and fro....  This round was intended to be a bonus, so a few moments chipping and putting were the extent of our commitment.  Those facilities were underwhelming, so we mostly milled around soaking up the sunshine.  A fourball had teed off when we first rolled our pushcarts down, but a lag in groups ensued fro twenty minutes or so, raising the issue of whether I should ask the starter about getting us off early.

Then a group of men and caddies arrived, and my radar immediately dove into the red zone, as I recognized Mike Keiser.  They had seven, and were arranging themselves into two groups when Keiser asked the starter whether we were a twosome, and suggested that we go first.  

He said something about us being here to move as opposed to lollygagging about, and I clarified for him that my role the next few days is to be Employee No. 2's bitch.  He also pointed out the chocolate chip cookies always available on the first tee, always the consummate host.  Idiot that I am, I missed the opportunity to get a photo with one of my heroes....  We did see him later having a drink before dinner, but we weren't about to get between a man and his beverage of choice....

The first few holes were delightful, as we had nothing but open ground in front of us.   The third hole featured a field of wild flowers off to the right:

On that same hole, Madam had her first spot of bother:

This is that third green looking back towards town and the lodges:

One crosses a road early in the routing, a road we would later find on our way to the beach.  This is that fourball on the sixth hole:

This is one of their more famous holes, a right-to-left dogleg with an infinity green in front of a small marina.  

Here's that rather photographic green complex:

The resort seems so authentic that they've even arranged for their own version of Ailsa Craig or Glashedy Rock in the background:

That first fourball was nice enough to allow us to play through.  But no sooner had we done so then we hit a wall of golfers.  As a twosome one expects it to be slow, but this was glacial....  After waiting twenty minutes on the 11th tee, Madam began agitating for a walk-off, and it was hard to argue with that.  

It served its purpose for acclimating us to conditions.  In general, we both hit the ball reasonably well, but were clueless on the greens.  Speed kills, as they say, and despite a scouting report that the greens are slow, we mostly had the opposite issue.  That will be our challenge for today, as the serious golf ensues.

We made that aforementioned trip to the beach, and Madam did the full plunge:

Surprisingly warm was her scouting report.... though the beach itself was quite rocky:

It appears to be the Northumberland Strait, well protected from the Atlantic Ocean:

That black marker arrow is Inverness.

Over that pre-dinner cocktail, we discussed the terms of engagement for the forthcoming matches.  I typically link to this post from Ballylffin days for an historical perspective on our matches.  Though we do have an issue that I'll need to investigate further...  She was advised to play the orange tees by the starter, as "most women do".  I did, however, note that those tees are a paltry 4,900 yards, clearly insufficient for a woman of her skills.

When I noted this concern to her, I found her response a bit....well, dismissive:

 

Not so fast there, young lady....She's also requested that we add junk to our repertoire, a request that I'm more than happy to grant.  I did have two birds in our eleven holes of play yesterday, so perhaps she thinks I peaked early....

The astute observer will have noticed that the resort faces due West, which delivered the goods at sunset:

And groups continued to play in long after sunset:

They kept coming for another hour, the 18th green being illuminated for nighttime putting contests and the like.  

The colors were quite extraordinary, the water itself featuring vivid bands of aqua that the camera fails to adequately capture:

We slept with our sliding door open, enjoying the sounds and aromas of the seashore.  Today promises to be equally beautiful, so I'll check back in with 'all later.

Midweek Musings

Tomorrow is getaway day, so forgive a little brevity....

Rut Roh - The thing about living in the public eye is that, well, you're in the public eye:

Dustin Johnson Tuesday issued a statement about his relationship with fiancée Paulina

Gretzky, days after she deleted multiple images of the couple from her Instagram account and amid reports that he had an affair. 

“Every relationship goes through its ups and downs, but most importantly, we love each other very much and are committed to being a family. Thank you for your love and support,” Johnson wrote via Twitter.

 At the risk of sounding like my grandmother, that commitment to being a family hasn't led to them, you know, actually becoming a family.... This is the kind of story that calls for maximum sensitivity, rendering it entirely inappropriate for this blog.  But, given my lack of any self control, see how you react to this profile of party of the second part:

Gretzky, who is a model, singer, celebutante and daughter of hockey Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky, has yet to issue a comment.

Personally, I think of Paulina first and foremost as a singer.... But, joking aside, it's always been a matter of when, not if, DJ would screw this up.  

More than anything, this smells to me like the ghost of Danny Willett's brother, threatening to overshadow that little exhibition outside of Paris.  Thank God we have those fourteen Vice Captains, because we might be down one WAG.

The Prime of Mark Broadie - Josh Sens with a good profile of stats guru to the stars Mark Braodie:

First adopted by the PGA Tour in 2011, “strokes gained,” Broadie’s breakthrough

analytics tool, has become a fixture in golf’s Moneyball age. Though he was not alone in seeing the shortcomings of old-saw categories such as greens-in-regulation and putts-per-round (which, beyond being unhelpful, can be outright misleading), he was the first to do something about it. With strokes gained, Broadie was able to set the data straight by placing it in proper context. It allowed him to measure a player’s performance against the rest of the field while providing an isolated view of specific aspects of their game. 

What started out in 2011 as merely a strokes-gained putting stat has, in the past seven years, spawned many other categories in the Tour’s ShotLink database, including revelatory strokes gained measures on tee shots, approach shots and shots around the green. Their combined influence on golf have been likened to the sway of sabermetrics over baseball, changing how Tour pros play and practice, how coaches coach, how caddies caddie.

I had the pleasure of sitting with Mark at a Met. Golf Writers Awards dinner a few years back, and had an interesting conversation with him.  He was surprisingly interested in my early appreciation of Bill James' work in baseball, a man to whom he's often compared.  

I, on the other hand, was most interested in the availability of data, which has always been the limiting factor.  Here's his take on the most interesting question, what comes next?

As for future projections for golf analytics, Broadie sees nearly boundless opportunity for exploration, limited only by the availability of good data. One area he has in mind is strokes-gained categories that account for factors such as wind, turf conditions and the contours of a shot. Another is quantifying performance under pressure, a topic Broadie has been working on of late. He believes he’s onto something. 

“For mental toughness, the only stat that attempts to measure it is bounce-back,” he says. “And I think there are better ways.”

That bit about pressure reminds strongly of James' work on clutch hitting, still the great white whale of baseball research.  We saw one effort from Broadie on that subject, a fledgling attempt to measure which players perform best at the majors.  In my humble opinion that didn't lead anywhere useful, though no artist should be judged by their demo versions....

Though before I leave, in Geoff's post on Braodie he shares this quite dramatic data from keegan's surprise win this week:

Our Keegs kicked butt on the greens this week, though that performance only boosted him to 174th in Strokes Gained: Putting for the year.  The lesson for those advocating for Bradley to have received that last captain's pick is that everything regresses to the mean. 

Ryder Cup Leftovers - Ryan Lavner with the trite yet appropriate all-American story of Tony Finau:

Tony Finau, the most improbable U.S. team member ever. 

Improbable not because of his record – with 11 top-10s and major cameos this year, he is certainly deserving of the final pick on an already-stacked squad. 

No, Finau’s inclusion is improbable because of his all-American backstory, because he had no business growing up to become one of the dozen best U.S. players. He’s the son of a Tongan immigrant. The precocious talent who learned the game from a novice. The tenacious product of Rose Park, the hardscrabble neighborhood just outside Salt Lake City. That area has produced NFL and NBA stars, but world-class golfers, with just a par-3 course and rundown muni to offer? Never. 

“I’m still in shock,” says Finau’s father, Kelepi. “Seriously, what are the chances? What are the odds?” 

One in a million? Worse?

 We're pretty much all the descendants of immigrants, though Tonga is a unique source for sure.

Thomas Pieters joins in the competition to play the role of Peter Willett, though with this a home game there won't be any ramifications.  First, on the crowds:

On multiple occasions, the heckling of the European players – particularly Rory McIlroy

and Sergio Garcia – fell unacceptably short of common decency, never mind good sportsmanship.

Speaking in Issue 166 of bunkered, which is on newsstands now, Pieters says he escaped most of the boorish vitriol but, playing alongside McIlroy three times, he still heard plenty of it. 

“For me, it wasn’t that bad because they didn’t know who I was,” he says. “They didn’t have any dirt on me or anything like that. But for Rory, yeah, it was pretty hostile. 

“They shouted stuff at him that you shouldn’t shout at anybody anywhere. Maybe that’s because they sell beer at 7am and Americans can’t drink. 

“But to be honest, you don’t really hear the words most of the time. It’s just a big wall of noise.”

Hopefully they'll be Wisconsin-nice at Whistling Straits, but I'm plenty worried about Bethpage in 2024.  

He wasn't the a of the set-up as well, though that was a reaction to Sunday pins on Nos. 17 and 18 at Medinah.  he's also too young to remember the rough on the 17th hole at Valderama in 1997, the low water mark in this genre.

The most curious item of the day is from Shane Ryan.  I agree with his basic premise, but his piece is littered with curiously revisionist history:

A similar dynamic, though far more muted, played out in 2016. Davis Love III (who did a terrific job four years earlier as U.S. captain at Medinah and was very unlucky to lose) stuck to a solid game plan and a boring demeanor, while Darren Clarke made a controversial experience-first friendship-first captain’s pick in Lee Westwood (sound familiar?), panicked with lineup decisions almost from the start and earned a good deal of criticism that even his allies on the team couldn’t stifle. 

In 2008, the same could be said for Paul Azinger and Nick Faldo, and that example (Azinger’s pods vs. Faldo’s chaos) is particularly instructive. Perhaps there’s another way to put this: When it comes to Ryder Cup philosophy, the system beats the individual.

Obviously that Westwood pick didn't work out, but is it fair to trash him without acknowledging that he had a team long on rookies and no viable alternatives?  And really, did Phil ghost-write this piece?  Because I thought we had gotten over the pod thing....

And this on Furyk seems at best premature:

Now, let’s be fair: Jim Furyk had a very easy task with his picks, and it would have taken a Watson-level of incompetence to screw it up. Furyk did avoid a few traps, though—he could have made the mistake of leaving Mickelson off the team, which, though form may have half-justified such a move, would inevitably brought an unwelcome focus to his captaincy and risked planting the seed of future mutiny. Then, at the conclusion of the BMW Championship, Furyk could gone overboard with recency bias and done something silly like select Keegan Bradley or Xander Schauffele. He didn’t—he gave a deserved pick to Tony Finau.

He went full chalk for sure, and we'll see how that works out.  But we'll also see who's actually in charge when we see whether Phil suits up for alternate shot play.

But here's his basic premise as captured in the header: 

Ryder Cup 2018: Jim Furyk has done everything right, and Thomas Bjorn has put himself squarely in the hot seat

I do agree that the Sergio pick will be a major factor in evaluating the Bjorn Enigma, though he lumps in Casey as well.  He seems to believe that Pieters and Rafa deserved picks, which I see as a respectable opinion, though highly arguable.  Neither played well enough to make their selection inevitable, and clearly Bjorn wanted Sergio in this team.  It's a ton of pressure on Sergio, so we'll see how he responds.

As for Furyk, We'll see if he has the cujones to say No to Phil.  

Is This Wise? - Tiger is already looking past the Ryder Cup, but alarms are flashing for this observer:

Following his final round at the BMW Championship, Woods was asked what's next for him after East Lake and the Ryder Cup, and what changes he has in store for his game.

His answer was unexpected. 

"I'm going to take a long break after the Ryder Cup and we're going to evaluate things but, more importantly, I need to start really lifting and getting after it and getting stronger in certain areas because playing every single week seems like every single day is maintenance at this point, war of attrition," Woods said. "What you do in the offseason is what allows you to maintain it through the year especially on the backside of the year and I really didn't train for all this. Because I didn't know how much I was going to be playing. I was just trying to play. 

"So, next year I have a better understanding of what I need to do and this offseason will be very different than it was last year."

On the one hand, his inability to finish rounds and tournaments could be indicative of a need for improved conditioning.  But the heavy lifting seems unnecessary and risky to your humble correspondent.

Nothing To See Here - Shack takes on the latest driving distance numbers with this perspective:

To recap: the triathletes of the PGA Tour head to the 2018 finish line with their foam rollers and four-hour workouts fueling distance gains. However, as any player paid by Titleist will tell you, it’s not the amazing equipment advances made by engineers and coaches cleverly using launch monitors to improve their students, but instead the purity of athletes who may get called at any time by NFL teams looking for mid-season injury replacements. 

In May 2002, the USGA and R&A drew a line in the sand and said any distance increases, no matter the cause, were not sustainable.

The PGA Tour driving distance average in 2002 was 279.84 yards.

279.8. 

Since then, the governing bodies have eroded their credibility by claiming their rules have capped distance and things have flatlined. 

The 2018 PGA Tour Driving Distance average heading to East Lake is at 296.0 yards, up over three yards from the 2017 numbers and over 16 yards from the sand-line drawing.

296.0.

 And Rory is poised to finish his season with an average driving distance of over 320 yards.  

The scarier thought is that these numbers might understate the gains in that the guys are hitting less than driver with greater frequency, as well as the fact that we've had unusually soft conditions for much of the year.

But after raising alarms last season, the lack of support from the PGA Tour and PGA of America seems to have quelled any motivation to do anything....

Cabot On Our Minds - Employee No. 2 and I leave tomorrow for Cabot Links, the relative newcomer built on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia.  It's very much one of those can't-get-there-from-here kind of places:

One of my new golf buddies was there last week, and had a delightful time.  However, he shouldn't have been surprised to find a large Scottish population in the region:

4. If these courses remind you of Scottish links, well, remember: Nova Scotia is Latin for New Scotland. And then there’s this: geologists have determined that eons ago, Scotland and Nova Scotia were physically connected, then went their separate ways through continental drift.

There's that, but also that it's located near the town of Inverness and you drive from Halifax through New Glasgow..... 

There are two courses, the original links designed by Canadian architect Rod Whitman:

It's often compared to Turnberry, which you'll see in this photo:

Authentically linksy for sure.....

Cabot Cliffs, designed by Coore-Crenshaw, is the newer of the courses, on bluffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean:

Dramatic, eh?

I'm most interested to see how linksy the Cliffs plays, as we'll have two rounds on each (though I'm already conspiring to attempt to shoehorn a fifth round in on the day of our arrival).

The laptop is about to be packed and the trip will be blogged, subject to the usual caveats related to time, WiFi and inspiration.  Our first round is currently scheduled for Saturday morning, so check back early and often to follow our progress.

Oh, and if you wouldn't mind, a prayer to the weather gods wouldn't hurt...

Weekend (Finaully) Wrapped

Add "We have a window" to great moments in golf's oral history....  Who cares how they played, it's just a minor miracle THAT they played.

Mr. Monday - Seriously, that's what Golf Digest dubbed our Keegs, who at least yesterday was the luckiest man on the planet:

Two weeks ago, Keegan Bradley played his way into the final pairing at the Northern Trust Open. It felt like a chance for a career renewal for Bradley, who hadn’t won in six

years and built up a series of solid, unspectacular seasons. But he looked uncomfortable all day in New Jersey, suffering his way to a final-round 78. As Bryson DeChambeau cruised to victory alongside him, Bradley slipped from second to T34. 

Monday was a wholly different story. Bradley rallied in the final round of the BMW Championship with a six-under 64, tied for the best round in the field, and outlasted the new World No. 1 to stand in the winner’s circle at Aronimink. It was his first win in six years.

Monday was a different story, mostly.  There was that comically bad shot tracer on his final hole drive, a hole in which he played four consecutive poor shots.

When I say lucky, I of course include this Justin Thomas moment.  But, more significantly, Justin Rose's poor play on the 18th in both regulation and the payoff.  Not the finish expected from one of the steadier players out there.

Josh Sens finds the event worthy of thirty seconds of our time, though just barely:

Winner: Keegan Bradley, in a playoff over Justin Rose 

Why it matters: The win ends a six-year victory drought for Bradley, whose last title came at the 2012 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational 

Best miss of the day: Bradley’s pull-hook drive on the 18 hole of regulation, which sailed so wildly left it wound up in a trampled down area of turf—a good lie, with a good view of the green. 

Second-best miss of the day: Rose’s approach on the 18th in the playoff, which ricocheted off the grandstand and settled in a good lie, just right of the green.

That's the drive referenced above, which in dryer conditions bounced forever off the hardpan.  But the miss of the day would seem to this observer to have been Rose's par putt to win on No. 18, which caught quite a bit of the cup.  

As with Webb Simpson, credit is due to Keegs for finding a way back to relevance after the ban on anchored putting.  While I remain glad that it's been banished from our game, there's little doubt that it was profoundly unfair to players that came of age anchoring.  

A couple of additional notes from Josh:

The woulda-coulda-shoulda been a winner: Rory McIlroy, who led the field in strokes gained pretty much everything, except with his flatstick. In the final round, the longest putt he made was from five feet. 

Quote of the day: “Was in control of my destiny, and just didn’t have it this week.”— Jordan Spieth, who after a T-55 finish that left him out of the top 30 in the FedEx Cup standings, and out of the Tour Championship for the first time in his career.

Gonna circle back below to both of those, but first....

Finaust Kind - A bit of an anti-climax, but to no one's surprise:

On an eventful Monday at Aronimink, the final piece of the Ryder Cup puzzle came into place. Captain Jim Furyk chose Tony Finau as his final captain’s pick, rounding out the

12-man squad headed to Paris at the end of the month. 

Furyk was scheduled to announce the pick Monday morning, but when thunderstorms rained out the final round on Sunday, Furyk’s announcement was postponed. At 4:45 p.m., it arrived on Twitter.

As you know, I'm lukewarm on this pick, as he's an awkward fit for both the golf course and the team.  Yeah, he's had a good season with lots of finishes, but a couple of the guys from the Tour Confidential panel with flashing yellow lights:

Shipnuck: I love Finau but the fact is he’s won exactly one tournament in five years on Tour. Aronimink would be Xander’s third win in 14 months. Finau has a ton of firepower but Schauffele is a closer. I’d take X-Man.

Passov: I’m absolutely with Mr. Shipnuck here. I’m a big, big Tony Finau fan — I mean, who isn’t at this point — but one total PGA Tour win just doesn’t strike me as an “automatic” reservation on the team. If X-Man bests another great field and bags his third crown, I say he goes to Paris.

Those were written Sunday night, and obviously X-man didn't get it done....  It's hard not to like Tony in fourballs, but even there he's going to have to hit some fairways....

In other cup news, The Forecaddie had this header on which he fails to deliver the goods:

The Forecaddie: ‘Players coach’ Furyk takes football-like strategy to Ryder Cup

I'm not sure what a football-like strategy would entail, but neither is our Forecaddie, as this is the closest he gets:

So do speeches at these things, preferably of the motivational variety. Furyk is hard at

work on his words of wisdom for the squad, and, given that he’s a football fanatic, TMOF wondered if Furyk’s style will be closer to player’s coach or disciplinarian. 

More Pete Carroll or Tom Coughlin? 

“Players, for sure,” Furyk told TMOF. “I’m not sure in the Ryder Cup the disciplinarian thing would quite fly, but these are my peers too. I’ve played alongside these guys for so long, not only played with them but (coached) as a vice-captain. I’m a lot older than most of them, but I’d say players coach for sure.”

The last RC Captain that was hired to be a disciplinarian was Tom Watson, and we're still waiting for Phil's shiv to be surgically removed.

But I'm still waiting for him to get to the football part....

Come to think of it, Furyk even talks about the Ryder Cup like a football game. One that can’t come soon enough. 

“It’s tough to play on the road,” Furyk said. “We’re trying to turn back 25 years of one-way at a golf course they know very well, I’m very aware of all that. I’m looking for players that want to seize that opportunity and really thrive in those conditions.”

Never mind.

And Alistair Tate explains the Sergio pick:

European captain Thomas Bjorn has certainly played it safe in his bid to win back the Ryder Cup. 

Selecting Paul Casey, Ian Poulter and Henrik Stenson made perfect sense. But adding Sergio Garcia’s name to that list suggests Bjorn has been too conservative. Rafa Cabrera Bello, Matt Wallace and Thomas Pieters might think so. 

Can Bjorn be blamed for choosing Garcia considering the hand he’d already been dealt? With five rookies already on his squad, Wallace had no chance despite winning the last qualifying event, the Made in Denmark, with the sort of golf needed in a Ryder Cup. Wallace, 28-year-old Englishman birdied seven of his last eight holes to win.

Au contraire, Monsieur....  Mr. Bjorn has made the Sergio pick that which will define his captaincy, anything but the safe call.

Besides vast experience, Bjorn opted for Garcia because of a mysterious intangible. 

“Sergio is the one that will stand up in the middle of the room and they will listen to,” Bjorn said. “He’ll be the one for me that is Ollie (Jose Maria Olazabal), Seve (Ballesteros) in the old days. Now it’s Sergio. That’s what he is and there’s not many of those people. There’s not many of those people that stand up in front of their peers one week every two years and make everybody better. That’s a massive quality to have and it’s something, as a captain, I feel like I can’t look away from.” 

Yet Garcia’s pick flies in the face of Bjorn’s statement earlier this year about picking players running into form. Garcia has none compared to Pieters and Cabrera Bello. Garcia’s performances this year prove that, with seven missed cuts in his last 12, including all four majors, and no appearance in this year’s FedEx Cup.

Tait amuses with his comparison to the notorious Curtis Strange pick, though the comparison doesn't serve us well.  There's a case to be made for Sergio, there was none in the case of Curtis.  I'm just \never comfortable when the case is entirely related to prior performance and team room intangibles, as these guys inevitably reach a sell-by date.  Even the sainted Seve stayed too long at the fair.....

Wither Rory -  John Feinstein captures the enigma that is Rory with this framing anecdote:

Rory McIlroy and David Feherty were having dinner in Philadelphia on Wednesday night on the eve of the BMW Championship at Aronomink Golf Club. The mood was

light, stories and one-liners flying back and forth. Almost casually, Feherty said, “So, how are you feeling about your game? Pretty good I would think?” 

McIlroy smiled and, as he always does, whether the setting is public or private, answered the question honestly. “My game is good,” he said. “I think it’s actually very good.” 

Then, almost sheepishly he added, “I shot 27 on the front nine today.” 

Feherty laughed. “Twenty-seven? I’d say that’s pretty good.” 

McIlroy nodded and continued. “I’ve really played well all year if you think about it. I’ve had so many chances to win—should have won a lot more. My problem’s been playing in the last group. I’ve just not played well in those situations. If I ever get that figured out, I could be dangerous.” 

He’s still trying to figure it out.

Yeah, but John never actually gets around to citing any evidence of the trying thing.  It seems just to be something bad that happens to Rory.....

Rory will be an interesting figure to watch at the Ryder Cup.  It's hard to see the Euros winning without a strong week from their best player (at least their best player not named Justin Rose), but there no style points available.

Jordan Throws Himself Upon The Mercy Of The Court - That quote above is so quintessentially Jordan....  Though I'd have replaced the word "week" with "year".  But I've been reliably informed that he's really close and putting very well.  Of course, my source is Jordan, and he's the ultimate unreliable narrator:

Jordan Spieth won’t be getting a Tour Championship invite but he will be getting a slap

on the wrist. 

The 25-year-old will miss the final event of the FedEx Cup playoffs for the first time in his career next week after just barely falling short of finishing in the top 30 in the FedEx Cup standings — and in the process will be violating a Tour rule. 

According to the PGA Tour’s Strength of Field Regulation, if a player plays 25 events in a season, he need not add any new events to his playing schedule. If he plays less than 25, then that player must play add a start to his schedule that he hasn’t played in the last four years. The Tour Championship would have been the 24th event of Spieth’s season. 

For failing to satisfy the Strength of Field Regulation, Spieth is set to receive either a fine of more than $20,000 or a three-tournament suspension; the Tour will determine which penalty will be assessed.

OK, the fine comes out of petty cash and the suspension only matters to the extent that it covers events in which he's likely to play.  But this is the bit than continues to rankle:

When asked for comment by GOLF.com Monday, the PGA Tour offered: “Regarding Jordan — like any issue where a player is found to be in violation of a PGA TOUR Regulation, the PGA TOUR will handle directly with that player and have no additional comment.

And why is that?  As instituted by Nurse Ratched, this is to maintain the premise that these guys are all saints, without sharing any information that would allow us to come to our own conclusions.  I look forward to updates about Jordan's jet-ski mishaps.

Department of Strange Timing - The same observer that saw football-inspired strategies in Captain Furyk extends the analogy to TV coverage.  But perhaps the Forecaddie hasn't noticed, but these are troubled times for the NFL....   I had been naively wondering which of these would cause the death of the NFL:

1. Catastrophic brain injuries;
2. The inability to define a catch, or;
3. Colin Kaepernick.

Of course, the last of those has moved on to take on Nike, get Woke- Go Broke, as the kids are wont to say.  But then I see this looming issue as well:

The Last Great Season of the NFL May Be Upon Us

Pro football is about to gamble away its future.

It's an interesting premise, especially in light of the fact that gambling has up until now contributed to the popularity of the league... It's just amusing timing, but of course there's no reason not to consider whether golf broadcasts could learn from the NFL, so lets' see what he's got:

4. Better use of on-course reporters 

During football games, we often see the sideline reporter providing an injury update or giving viewers a sense of the mood on the sidelines. It’s not always great information, but at least it gives viewers the sense that those reporters are close to the action. 

No sports reporters are closer to the action than golf’s on-course reporters, but the only time we see them on camera is if they’re forced to do a post-round interview. Occasionally it would be nice to see Roger Maltbie or Peter Kostis show us a bad lie in the rough and explain the player’s options.

Ummm... aren't they already doing this pretty regularly.  There's an obvious issue of getting in the way, as well as the fact that their descriptions of lies frequently seems in conflict with the view of said lie provided.  Unless he's referring to the Masters, where we get none of the above.

2. Standardize key technologies

When I watch an NFL game, I know I’m going to see the line-of-scrimmage line and the first-down line on every play. When I watch golf, I might see shot-tracing technology or putting graphics on a hole – or I might not. 

Rather than golf producers teasing viewers with cool technology here or there, let’s identify two or three of the best technologies, then put all of the sponsorship dollars behind them so that we can see them on every hole.

I don't see this as such a great idea.  Since we can't follow the ball on camera, more shot tracing is probably a good thing, but I know many folks hate the putting lines....  otherwise, nothing here really rocks my world.

Loose Ends - Just a couple of insignificant items so you won't feel cheated, including this Signboard from last weekend's Euro Tour event:

That arose because baby brother Chase Koepka was paired with Daniel Brooks.....

This from that Golf Magazine anonymous poll of Tour players will not surpsie anyone that's listened to the audio feed of a Tour event:

In GOLF’s anonymous player poll, out this month in the October issue, 53% of the 59 respondents said that unruly fan behavior has cost them at least one shot in a tournament. “Every. Single. Week,” one player said. 

For some players, there is an upside to relative anonymity, compared to the Tour’s biggest stars. One Tour pro remarked that he never has to deal with hecklers: “Not enough people are ever watching me.”

Is that you, Robert Allenby?   It's getting very annoying out there, as they compete with each other to live further under par....  Or something.