Weekend Wrap - Seppsis Edition

I'll admit, a bit of an off-putting header but, as I caught bits and pieces of the denouement yesterday, it occurred to me that, of those in contention, there was only one guy with no discernable Q-rating, and of course that's who held on.

Scenes From The Cricket Club -  I'll lede by telling you that I made sure to see much of the coverage, just to grab a look at Philly Cricket Club, although most of my viewing was earlier in the week.  I thought the place looked spectacular, but unfortunately not a good fit for the modern elite game.  While it looked like a characteristically great course off the tee, with all sorts of interesting questions asked of players.  Alas, no questions for the best of the best, as they could carry most of the intricate bunkers that test mere mortals.  Maybe just a bit more on this below.

I'm not going to dive too deeply, but here's a refresher on the Austrian's path:

It wasn’t long ago that Sepp Straka was ranked outside the top 200 in the Official World Golf Rankings. He was searching. Searching for his first win, searching for consistency.

Straka decided to change some things after a 2021 calendar year that saw him miss 16 cuts and card just two top-10 finishes on the PGA Tour. Well, everything.

He switched to coach John Tillery early in 2022. Always known as an inconsistent bomber, Straka decided to throttle down a touch in the name of accuracy. Three months later, he won the 2022 Honda Classic.

That started Straka on a steady climb that continued Sunday, where he survived brutal nerves, some terrible shots and a loaded field to win the Truist Championship at Philadelphia Cricket Club’s Wissahickon Course by two shots over Shane Lowry and Justin Thomas.

The win, the fourth and biggest of Straka’s career, moves him into the top 10 in the OWGR and is the latest proof that the changes he made to his team and his mentality have paid off.

“Very grateful because it’s not just my hard work, my coaches …. the work that they put in day in and day out is very special, and it makes me — it makes it easier for me to go out and try to get better because I know that they’re doing everything they can to help me out,” Straka said Sunday night. “I think it’s just kind of a culmination of a lot of people putting a lot of work that’s gotten me to this point.”

A nice story and one assumes he'll have to play well for the Euros to have a chance at Bethpage.  When I looked at updated Ryder Cup standings he was shockingly low, though I did note that he would obviously be on the team, even if it required a captain's pick.  Here's at least a partial explanation of that:

There sat Rory McIlroy in a cart just off the practice putting green. The five-time major champion congratulated Straka and delivered a quick message to the Austrian.

“He told me at least this win counts for Ryder Cup points,” Straka, who joined McIlroy as the only multiple-time winner on the PGA Tour this year, said. “Really, really happy for that. I’ve been kind of behind in the points because of that win at [American Express], not counting [because it was opposite a Rolex Series Event]. “I knew that if I just kept playing good golf, I would have a chance to be there. I’m sure this will probably help me out with the rankings a lot. So very grateful, and hopefully I can keep the good play going and keep getting some more points.”

Of course Rory was there for his buddy Shane, who unfortunately recreated a couple of Rory's signature moves in coughing the event up.  And it was just on the golf course that he mimicked Rory's playbook:

Shane Lowry becomes the latest pro to blow off the media after a heartbreaking loss

 Classy.

The Tour Confidential panel was largely focused on Quail Hollow, but spared one query for this event and venue:

The Wissahickon Course at Philadelphia Cricket Club — a highly ranked A.W. Tillinghast design — hosted the Truist Championship (with Sepp Straka winning by two), which at just 7,100 yards was an obvious outlier to most PGA Tour stops. “These new renovated old-school courses, the strategy is just hit driver everywhere and then figure it out from there,” McIlroy said early in the week. With the evolution of the golf ball, equipment and professional athletes, the fear is Golden Age courses like this will become obsolete for pros. So, did this week help or hurt that assumption?

Hirsh: Don’t get me wrong, Wissahickon, a course I’ve played hundreds of times, showed out well this week and played much harder than I was expecting. But I think McIlroy said it best this week when he said the tough conditions Friday almost made the course play as it would with older equipment. I’ve been a ball roll-back proponent for a while. Cricket at 7,100 yards is a bear for most players — even the skilled membership who in the club championship do not play the course completely tipped out like it was this week. Let’s make 7,100 yards reasonable for the PGA Tour again. I think Cricket proved that Golden Age courses aren’t obsolete yet, while at the same time proving the need for the rollback.

Sens: I don’t doubt that grip-it-and-rip-it was the strategy this week. But with a few exceptions — Sawgrass, maybe, Riviera — isn’t that how pretty much all Tour venues play for these guys these days? Bomb and gouge is fairly standard. What a course like Philly Cricket lacks in distance it makes up for with interesting angles and features around the greens. Watching them face ticklish chips and putts on a cool course was a reminder that these types of designs are very much worth keeping in the rotation. I suspect it would have been even cooler without all the grain. We didn’t get to see the course at its firmest and fieriest.

Bastable: After Scheffler’s 31-under romp at TPC Craig Ranch a week earlier, Cricket looked like Oakmont. I loved it, and so did the players. More, please!

I think it showed great and did provide, with an assist to the weather, a reasonably proper test, including a winning score that started with a "1", not a "3".

Perhaps I'm going in the wrong order,  because this item includes a prescient query leading into the week:

As my colleague James Colgan wrote earlier this week, a perplexing question surrounded pro golf’s return to the Philadelphia area: Will what makes these old-school masterpieces special matter when facing today’s modern technology?

The answer form this week, absent weather, is largely "Hell no."  Firm and fast conditions would have helped, although those are not likely in early May.  But the deeper issue might be related to this specific design, because all of those spectacular fairway hazards were utterly irrelevant if you have a 325-yeard carry in your bag, which almost each and every one of them does.

Shall we let Rory connect the dots:

On Friday, with the wind blowing and the rain coming down, the PGA Tour’s best saw a different side of Philly Cricket Club. With the ball not flying nearly as far, McIlroy, a vocal proponent of rolling back the golf ball, better understood how Tillinghast’s creation was meant to be attacked.

“Absolutely. It’s a little more strategic,” McIlroy said after shooting a second-round three-under 67. “Even today, heavier air, rain, a bit of wind. I draw back on a few holes and then I hit driver on a couple. I think there’s a lot of debate about it, but if the golf ball just went a little shorter, this course would be awesome. Not that it isn’t awesome anyway, but right now, for the distances we hit it, it’s probably 500 or 600 yards too short.

“It would be amazing to be able to play courses like this the way the architect wanted you to play them.”

Allow the pros to play an interesting venue with hazards they can't carry?  Why start now?

The PGA Championship -  Your humble blogger is not a fan of Mr. Fazio or Quail Hollow, whose greatest contribution to the game has been allowing us to see Aronimink and Philly Cricket Club.

Let's see what the TC gang thinks should be discussed:

The PGA Championship, the second men’s major of the year, begins Thursday at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, N.C. What’s the better potential outcome: Rory McIlroy winning to capture the first two of four legs of the season Grand Slam, or Jordan Spieth winning to complete his career Grand Slam?

Jack Hirsh: Spieth, just because him winning the career Grand Slam is far more likely than

anyone ever winning a single-season slam. If the Masters winner is one of the top-10 players in the world, then he is always the favorite or near-favorite for the next major (the PGA). Spieth has just started to get his game in order with two top-5s this season and a string of top-20s going back to the beginning of April that he just narrowly missed extending this week. He’s going to be part of the conversation at the PGA Championship every year until he wins it or retires — and this year, he’s trending enough to be a serious factor. As for McIlroy and the single-year slam, we can talk about this at Oakmont if he wins the PGA.

Josh Sens: Agree with Jack. If McIlroy wins next week, we can start with the season Grand Slam hype. Spieth would be the better story, especially given how long he’s been trying to regain his form. The problem with that narrative is that it belongs in the “fantasy” section of the bookstore. It’s not going to happen. Too many other top guys are playing too well while Spieth continues to search.

Alan Bastable: Was a bummer to see Spieth lose some of his sheen at the Cricket Club after playing so well at the Nelson. Would have been electric to have him, Rory, Scottie and Bryson — aka the men’s game four biggest needle-movers, non-Tiger Division — all rolling into Charlotte in peak or near-peak form. Still, we’ve seen far more positives than negatives from Spieth this year. [whispers] Maybe his wrist is finally better. Exciting week ahead!

The fantasy section was a good reference, but perhaps it's more the fantasy section's remainder bin....

I just don't think much of Jordan's game these days.  He'll throw up some good stuff and he's held things together a little better lately, but ultimately he's hit a crazy wild shot and post a triple.... or three

With McIlroy in form and Scottie Scheffler coming off a record-breaking win in Texas, are you taking the duo of McIlroy and Scheffler to win at Quail Hollow, or the field?

Hirsh: Nah, I’ll take the field. I think there’s just too much parity in the sport right now. McIlroy definitely didn’t have his best stuff in Philadelphia this past week, and while Scheffler dominated in Houston, that was no major championship by any means.

Sens: Yeah. Those two guys will rightly be the favorite but better odds go to the field. DeChambeau. Schauffele. Thomas. The list goes on of others who could win.

Bastable: I’m here only for Michael Block prop bets (he’s back in the field, folks!). But if we must ponder other wagers, yes, I, too, would take the field. At the Masters, I would have happily taken Rory and Scheffler vs. everyone else, but PGA feels like more of an unknown, even if the tourney is visiting a course the players know well and at which McIlroy has excelled. That said, if you gave me Rory, Scottie and Bryson…

Is Rory in form?  I don't actually think so, and his post-Masters performance supports my case.  Am I the only one expecting a post-Masters letdown for him?  you always take the field, but were I to risk actual money, it would be on Scheffler.

Whose game is trending (and whose is fading) since the Masters?

Hirsh: Justin Thomas has to be one of the hottest players in the game right now, having broken his win drought and then giving it a real run again at the Truist. Max Homa also has seemed to find something. He was T12 at the Masters and had another good showing at Cricket, despite being the last player on the range each day.

As for someone fading, it might be Collin Morikawa. He was T12 at the Masters after notching two runner-ups early in the year but has finished T54-MC (the MC coming at the Zurich team event) and fizzled this past week after an opening 63 with a 70-72 showing on Friday and Saturday. He’s been one of the straightest drivers on Tour, but made an interesting driver change this week as well as testing out a mallet putter in the two starts after the Masters.

Sens. Jack took the words out of my keyboard. Thomas trending; Morikawa not. But this week in Philly also gave us a glimpse of Cameron Young rising up the leaderboard. He’s a streaky player who we haven’t seen much from of late. Maybe the Truist was a sign of more to come.

Bastable: Shane Lowry, his tough finish at the Cricket Club aside, has been on a heater this year, contending nearly every time he tees it up; he has eight top-20s in 11 starts. Tommy Lad is also on the move. After a T21 at the Masters, he finished 7th at Harbour Town followed by a 4th-place finish this week in Philly. Ludvig Aberg has been quiet since winning the Genesis at Torrey. In his six starts since, he has just one top-20 finish (7th at the Masters) and two missed cuts. Of the players who finished the Truist, Aberg outplayed just seven of them.

Wait, I'm going to need a moment to compose myself after all those howlers.....But you make the call as to which is funnier.

Citing Max Homa after a T30 in a limited field event, meaning he beat maybe forty guys is quite exhibition of projection, though Alan Bastable makes such a compelling case.  he's unable to choose between Shane Lowry, after watching how tight the collar got playing with the lead, and Tommy-Lad, a stylish player whose career is defined by not winning anything anywhere ever.  Hmmm, that is truly a tough call.

What’s one other PGA storyline worth monitoring that’s not generating enough buzz?

Hirsh: I’m not sure this fits the question, but I’m going to use this platform to advocate that majors should not be played at regular Tour venues. The only exceptions should be for Pebble Beach and Riviera, which are two of the best courses in the world. Quail Hollow, while effective at producing good champions and compelling leaderboards, is not a world-beater. Why should we be playing one of the game’s four biggest events at a course we see every year when majors are supposed to provide a different challenge? We should be getting to see something new every year.

Sens: Like him or not, almost every time he’s been in a major since jumping to LIV, Bryson DeChambeau has been an exciting part of the story. Lots of Scottie, Rory, Spieth and Thomas talk for now. But I’m banking on Bryson having a say about that.

Bastable: Blockie! Our guy’s playing in his fourth-straight PGA. That’s no small feat.

I completely agree with Jack Hirsh, though I did have that minor rebuttal above.  Quail to me is a dreadful major venue, both because it's a regular Tour venue as well as the fact that it, yanno, sucks.  But, we got to see two Golden Age gems when they had to go elsewhere, and they're taking the PGA Championship to one of them next year.

Since all eyes will be on Jordan, Geoff has a Quad post up analyzing his chances:

Jordan Spieth could gain entry into Career Grand Slam G&CC just 36 days after Rory McIlroy accomplished the feat. Two golfers in just over a month after a 25-year wait list to join Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Tiger Woods? Are we, as fans, worthy of so much history in so little time?

McIlroy had ten prior cracks while on the waiting list and Spieth arrives at Quail Hollow taking his ninth try at winning each of The Masters, U.S. Open, The Open and the PGA. The sports and even non-sports world can grasp the difficulties and oddities of mastering four different disciplines as they can with the tennis CGS. Having eluded some of greatest ever also makes it easy to understand: Walter Hagen (no Masters in his prime), Sam Snead (the U.S. Open eluded him), Byron Nelson (only played The Open twice), Arnold Palmer (no PGA), Tom Watson (no PGA), and self-described- billionaire-turned-social media addict Phil Mickelson (no U.S. Open).

Quail Hollow’s long and lush presentation seems like Spieth’s least appetizing opportunity with his well-stated preference to play firm, fast, and windy golf that rewards creativity and precision iron play. Monday’s forecast of over an inch of rain won’t help. Next year he gets to tackle Donald Ross greens at Aronimink before the PGA comes to a new Gil Hanse design in greater Dallas. Spieth can exploit his residency to learn a Frisco course that might be more up his alley.

Long and lush for a guy recovering from a \wrist injury?  For a guy that hits it more than a little crooked off the tee?  

But as Geoff goes on he provides a little more encouragement for Jordan:

Spieth’s limited track record in prior events at Quail Hollow—excluding match play in the 2022 Presidents Cup—means he and wife Annie will be naming their third child “Quail” (beats Hollow though):

• 2013 - T32 (69-71-75-73)

• 2017 - PGA T28 (72-73-71-70

• 2022 - Presidents Cup: 5-0-0 (4-0 in matches paired w/ Justin Thomas)

• 2023 - MC (72-77)

• 2024 - T29 (69-71-76-70)

At 7,626 yards, Quail Hollow looks like a bad fit on paper. But 7,600+ isn’t long anymore, and he’s averaging 304.5 off the tee this year, which is more than enough firepower to get around the property. The 2017 PGA winner and three runners-up all ranked inside the top 20 approaching the green and putting. Spieth has rebounded in both categories this year, with his approach play leap the most encouraging sign of improving health. He’s gone from 138th in Strokes Gained Approach last year to 48th in 2025, with especially noticeable gains inside 150 yards boosting his number (even though his overall proximity average has remained the same).

Quail’s greens are big but have plenty going on, meaning the week will again call on putting prowess more than bombing and gouging. Or so we hope. Every player is significantly longer in the eight years since the Charlotte club last hosted and an increasing number rely on someone who tells them the numbers reward length over accuracy without regard for the stress caused by the approach. Spieth’s still not been great from the rough this year (145th SG), but Quail Hollow’s thick stuff is expected to be topped off at a modest 2.75”. Plus, he’ll be fighting through predominantly rye instead of illaqueable bermuda.

Not over the moon at Jordan's chances, and isn't his running mate JT the far better play?

Don't get me wrong, the guy everyone will be watching is Scottie.

Unfortunately, that will have to suffice for today, and that's not the last of the bad news on the blogging front.  Employee No. 2 and I are off to West Coast later this week to visit her family.  We d return on Sunday, so I expect that the next you'll see me is to wrap the PGA Championship on next Monday.  Have a great week.

Midweek Musings - Bonus Edition

I try to give a roadmap to my blogging so you'll know when to check the site, but things change.  In this case, we've moved the Wednesday Game™ to the afternoon, freeing up my morning.  Win-win, baby!

Monday Finish - That's Dylan Dethier's weekly feature, from which I shall pluck the gems of interest to me, necessarily entailing some jumping from topic to topic.  We'll begin where Dylan begins, and I'll beg forgiveness for the long excerpt:

Remember after the Masters, when Bryson DeChambeau said that Rory McIlroy, his playing partner in Sunday’s final tee time, hadn’t talked to him at all? I thought the “controversy” from

that interview clip was silly; fair play by McIlroy, who was locking in, and also good on DeChambeau for just answering the question honestly after a long, frustrating day. Still, it was a revealing answer, and a reminder of the ways in which these two titans of the modern game are distinctly different, in both approach and personality. DeChambeau is the YouTube entertainer chasing engagement, while McIlroy is the old-school competitor chasing history. (That’s a wild oversimplification, of course.)

But where did McIlroy learn to stay in his own zone — and has he always been this way? Let’s rewind.

A bunch of people on [gestures broadly] the internet wisely pointed out that this is hardly the first time one pro has stonewalled the other in the final round of a big-time event. One recent and particularly high-profile case: Tiger Woods in the 2019 Masters, en route to one of the most incredible major wins in golf history. Tony Finau has now told the story a couple times, including here on Subpar, about their first and last exchange of that round, which came as they walked off the tee together at No. 7:

Finau: “Hey Tiger, how are the kids?

Woods: “They’re doing fine.”

And that was it. Finau got the message.

“The next time we spoke was when I congratulated him on winning the green jacket,” he said.

Sound familiar? Where it gets interesting is if we rewind two weeks further. The Tiger-trackers among you may recall that in early 2019, Woods showed signs of serious form at the WGC-Match Play, where he advanced through pool play to make it through to the round of 16, where he faced [drum roll] Rory McIlroy.

McIlroy was in stellar form at the time; he was coming off a Players Championship win and a string of top-six finishes. Woods and McIlroy had become friendlier in the preceding years, spending time together on Tour as well as at home in Florida. But here was an alpha-dog showdown, mid-comeback Tiger against mid-flight Rory. How did the dynamic play out on course between two of golf’s modern greats? Here’s how the New York Times described the day:

“McIlroy tried to draw Woods into casual conversation early in the match only to have his attempts peter out like short putts,” wrote Karen Crouse. She described Woods as “a dispassionate adversary intent on making putts, not conversation.” In other words, back in 2019 McIlroy was the one who got rebuffed and got the message, the would-be talker rather than the tunnel-vision stoic. The story described a lengthy wait on the 5th tee where the two just killed time and didn’t talk at all.

Woods wound up a 2-and-1 winner, sending McIlroy home early. Later, McIlroy corroborated Crouse’s report as part of his epic interview series with Paul Kimmage of the Irish Independent:

“Tony Finau told a similar story … about Augusta,” McIlroy said. “So, same sort of thing.” In the context of the scorpion vs. the frog, McIlroy described Woods as “majority scorpion”, while “my natural tendency is to be the frog”.

You know how the next several years went for McIlroy at majors: close call after close all, each one heartbreakingly closer than the last. After one such near-miss at the 2023 U.S. Open he said he’d “go through 100 Sundays like this” to win his next major — and that it would be that much sweeter when he did.

And then came this Masters Sunday, April 13, 2025, where McIlroy made some shocking mistakes but hit just enough preposterous shots to win the craziest tournament anybody could remember. It’s impossible to know how to tally the X-factors involved, but maybe, just maybe, ripping a page from Woods’ book and shutting out DeChambeau plus the rest of the world gave him the tiniest edge he needed to finally get over the line.

I didn't realize there was a sequel to Mean Girls.  None of this matters, folks.  Tony didn't dump his tee shot on No. 12 into the water because Tiger didn't respond expansively about his kids, and even Bryson wasn't implying that it mattered, yet somehow it's supposed to matter?  Even if they were chatty, that would happen early in the day and as the round intensified it would get quieter and quieter....

If it helped Rory stay focused, I can accept it to that extent.  But there's an implication that the quiet treatment affected playing partners, and that to me is quite the stretch.  To the extent that any of them were affected by the silent treatment, that just means they weren't going to win anyway.

This is an amusing factoid:

One last crazy connection: Before Tiger won the Masters in 2019 he hadn’t won a major in 10 years, 304 days. That’s almost identical to Rory, who entered this year’s Masters Sunday without a major win in 10 years, 249 days. No, Rory isn’t Tiger; we’re not so swept up in the moment to make that declaration. But as of April 13 they are the only two guys to win the career grand slam in the last 50 years. And to think that Rory won the Masters while leaning on a lesson he’d learned from Tiger Woods himself, his childhood hero, six years ago?! I think that’s pretty cool.

Amusing and ironic, but for completely different reasons.

This caught my eye:

Bryson DeChambeau won LIV’s event in South Korea, fending off Charles Howell III — his Crushers teammate — with a furious finish; he holed a 50-footer for birdie at No. 17 and birdied 18 as part of a six under par back nine. It’s DeChambeau’s first win on LIV since 2023, although he’d held 36-hole leads at the league’s two most recent events. (DeChambeau’s Crushers also won the team title.) He also led the Masters through two holes on Sunday, making this close-out a bit more satisfying.

“I feel like I’ve been playing some great golf, but I just haven’t gotten the job done,” DeChambeau said. “That was a lot of tension. Just glad I was able to step up to the plate and get it done.”

Who cares, right?  But as God as my witness, not only didn't I know that Chucky Three-Sticks was still a professional golfer.  Let's just say that it's been quite some time since that name has crossed my field of vision...

This bit just made laugh because, well, Maxfli:

1. Last week’s Zurich Classic wasn’t just a massive win for co-champions Ben Griffin and Andrew Novak — it was the first Tour victory for reinvented golf-ball brand Maxfli. Our Jack Hirsh has the story of a 22-year win gap, plus what’s next.

If you're gonna revive the Maxfli brand, isn't Pinnacle next?

RYDER CUP WATCH

Spieth?!

With all due respect to third-place finisher Sam Stevens, this was a notably strong week for the Ryder Cup cases of Jordan Spieth and Sam Burns, who finished fourth and fifth, respectively. Spieth has been posting a series of strong results; he has six top-20s, three top-10s and now two top-fives in 2025.

Burns played well to finish 2024 but struggled earlier this year, including three missed cuts in a row beginning in March. But his T13 at Hilton Head combined with this fifth is promising.

One encouraging number for both players: strong strokes gained numbers with their irons. Spieth gained 2.13 strokes on the field on approach, while Burns gained 2.56.

Dylan, I believe you're falling into a trap that catches many folks.  The correlation between performance and captain's picks is far more tenuous than you perhaps realize.  I expect Sam Burns to be on the team, but I believe he will be selected for the wrong reason, to wit, that he's Scottie's BFF.

To this observer, the most important aspect of Dylan's column gets buried by that long Tiger-Rory dissertation, though I'll segue into with this from a Golf Digest piece:

Or have the Signature Events, particularly this season, actually been good? Look no further than the last two, the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the RBC Heritage, which both delivered on the entertainment front. Strong leader boards, strong winners, strong ratings. But are they really all that different from LIV events, which get a ton of hate for their small, top-heavy fields and exorbitant purses?

You know what else they remind of?  Those WGCs that died an ignominious death.....  I couldn't resist that LIV reference, but here are the source comments from Erik Van Rooyen:

He was also thrilled to have played in way into next week’s Truist Championship, a Signature Event on Tour. But he didn’t mince words when it came to describing his feelings on the new limited-field structure of those events.

“How honest do you want me to be? I hate it,” he said, to laughter. “I strongly believe that the strongest fields are the ones with the most players in them. The guys on the PGA Tour are so good. It’s so deep. I get that you’ve got the Scotties of the world, the Rorys of the world, and people want to see them, it’s entertaining. But like, the PGA Championship coming up, for example. I think it’s the strongest field in the game, similar to the Players. I love competing, so selfishly I want to compete against those guys. Again, really proud of playing my way into it.”

Van Rooyen clarified that being able to play your way in is “100 percent a good thing,” and he sang the praises of the Tour’s meritocracy. He’d just draw things up a little differently. In the meantime, he’ll change his own plans instead.

“I’ve got my wife and kids here as well. I guess we’ll all just go to Philly and go to Quail [Hollow, for the PGA Championship] the week after.”

I encourage you to read that second 'graph over again, as i can only concluded that he must a closet reader of Unplayable Lies.

Compare and contrast the differing views of golf.  Van Rooyen (and your humble blogger) believe that the best events should have the best fields.  The PGA Tour seems to believe that the only way to grow the game is to ensure that Cantlay gets paid..... 

One last point before I move on.  That event Van Rooyen played himse4lf into is going to be special.  Quail Hollow is one of my least favorite venues on Tour, so you can imagine my excitement at the PGA of America taking their flagship championship there.  But there is one benefit, to wit, that regular Tour stop invariably moves to a far more interesting venue.  In the past this has allowed us a glimpse of  Aronimink, the Donald Ross gem outside of Philly.  This year we have another treat, as they're going to the Philadelphia Cricket Club, specifically the Tillinghast Wissahickon Course, which was faithfully restored recently by architect Keith Foster.  

It's insane to schedule Signature Events the weeks before and after majors, yet they do it, thereby diminishing their own events.  At least in this case they've given us one reason to tune in, the golf course.

LIV v. PGA - Just a snapshot of one week, but...

A gnarly storm in the New Orleans area, home of the PGA Tour’s Zurich Classic, was to thank for LIV’s open waters, along with a longer-than-expected blackout at the broadcast compound affecting both CBS and Golf Channel.

By the time the PGA Tour came back on air after a 2-hour delay around 5 p.m., many of LIV’s more vocal social media supporters were giddy. This was the moment they’d been waiting for — a real opportunity to showcase LIV’s competitive product…and maybe even steal some viewership from the PGA Tour.

So, how’d it look?

Spoiler alert, pretty much like it always does:

THE RESULTS ARE IN…

LIV clocked in at 110,000 average viewers on FS1 for Niemann’s victory in Mexico. The PGA Tour delivered 1.63 million average viewers on CBS in roughly the same timeslot.

Of course, there’s a zillion different caveats available here, including that LIV’s broadcast aired on cable while the PGA Tour’s aired on a national over-the-air network, and that LIV aired the final round of a very compelling tournament for much of Sunday while the PGA Tour spent a good chunk of its telecast airing last year’s competition due to technical difficulties and weather delays.

LIV, still a train wreck....  though maybe that's unfair because people can't take their eyes off a train wreck, because they seem to have little difficulty taking them off LIV.

Udder Stuff - This header is just a reminder that one of may favorite golf events of the year is coming up:

Meet the teams, individuals who advanced to the 2025 NCAA Div. I Women's Golf Championship

The NCAAs are great mostly because of their embrace of team match play. The ladies start next week, the men come the week after.

Scenes from Scotland, first the good:

Excavations at site of new Tom Doak golf course site in Scotland nets prehistoric findings

Artifacts spanning thousands of years have been uncovered during work on a new golf course in

the Scottish Highlands.

Traces of ancient dwellings, a ceremonial circle and a wheel which belonged to a Bronze Age chariot have been among the "properly exceptional" finds revealed during the construction of the Old Petty Championship Golf Course at Cabot Highlands, near Inverness.

Excavations were conducted by Avon Archaeology Highland across the site, which covers 50 hectares, during its construction phase.

These revealed at least 25 prehistoric wooden buildings, alongside relics such as flint tools, quern stones, and the rare prehistoric chariot wheel.

Other discoveries include remnants of Neolithic wooden buildings, a 3,500-year-old Bronze Age cremation urn and evidence for medieval field systems and grain-drying kilns, adding to Scotland’s rich and layered history.

Castle Stuart is a wonderful new links built on a spectacular site overlooking the Moray Firth.  But mostly this a reminder to myself that the bride and I will be in the Scottish Highlands in a couple of months, which brings a big smile to your humble blogger's face.

Much as I romanticize the place, Scotland has gone down a political rabbit hole and suffers from all the ills of contemporary society:

Gang of e-bike vandals destroy 136-year-old muni golf course in Scotland

Unfortunately, on Friday 136-year-old Braid Hills Golf Course in Edinburgh, Scotland was vandalized by a gang of nearly 15 e-bikers in broad daylight. Head greenskeeper Gary Rodgers shared the following footage (and its aftermath) to X, calling the incident “absolutely heartbreaking.”

As Bunkered reports, this has become something of an epidemic in the UK, with vandals damaging all 18 greens at Bootle Golf Course, a similarly accessible community golf course in Merseyside, last week. A commenter from another course near Braid Hills also posted, “They are ripping us up to. They are hard to catch!”

 What a world we live in.  Any guesses as to the punishment?  

That will be it for today.  there is golf Friday morning, so I expect I'll see you again to wrap things on Monday morning.  Have a great weekend.

Weekend Wrap - Nailbiter Edition

That was quite the dramatic finish at TPC Craig Ranch, eh?  

It's still zero dark thirty as I hunt and peck, but I'm already on the clock....  And the next few days aren't any better.  This will be a somewhat cursory post and, absent rain on Wednesday, any catch-up will have to wait until Thursday.

I caught a bit of the coronation, after that desultory Yankee game came to a merciful conclusion.  That minor hiccup at the end reminded me of Jordan Spieth finishing off his 2015 Masters win, where he needed to par the finisher to eclipse Tiger's scoring record, yet ended up settling for a par.

Shack has a post up with one of his all-encompassing summaries of statistical dominance:

In capturing his 14th Tour title, the 28-year-old Scheffler put on a statistical performance for the ages:

• 1st in Proximity (28’1”)

• 1st in Total Birdies (29)
  

• 1st in Par Breakers (44%)

• 1st in 3-Putt Avoidance (0)

• 1st in Putting Average (1.52)

• 1st in SG: Approach (+3.203)

• 1st in SG: Tee-to-Green (+4.243)

• 1st in Greens in Regulations (82%)

• 1st in Par 3 Scoring Average (2.69)

• 1st in Par 4 Scoring Average (3.73)

• 1st in Par 5 Scoring Average (3.83)

• 1st in Putting From 3-6 Feet (56/56)

• 1st in Strokes Gained: Approaching the Green (12.811) 😵‍💫

• 1st in Strokes Gained: Tee to Green (16.972)

So, how'd he do in the Miss Congeniality voting? 

That photo is about as golfy as anything you'll find, a six-year old Scottie with Lord Byron.  Though aren't you dying to see that six-year old's footwork?

What obviously added poignancy to the week was the winner's ties to the event, one that I'm a bit surprised and pleased to see has thus far survived:

Armed with a framed version of the photo, CBS’s Amanda Balionis attempted to tee up Scheffler

for something nice to say about that moment when he met a certified First Team all-time legend of the sport. It didn’t yield much.

“He's a great man,” Scheffler said while holding his son. “He was great for the game of golf. He was a great person, a family man, and I'm proud to be the champion at his event.”

After the round, he admitted his memory is not the best but gave a better answer.

“When I think about this tournament, I think about Mr. Nelson,” Scheffler said. “I think about what he did for the game of golf. He was a man of faith, and he was a great person as well off the golf course. He was a person that I've read a lot about. I've had the opportunity to meet him a few times when I was a kid, and I know a lot about him. He was a tremendous player and a tremendous person. So we look up to him in a variety of ways. I'm proud to be here supporting his tournament and his legacy.”

Scheffler also brought some much-needed emotion to what was otherwise a blowout win and a lackluster event.

“When I think about this tournament, I think about a lot of different stuff,” he said. “I grew up coming to watch it. This was my first start on the PGA Tour when I was in high school. The girl I was dating at the time is now my wife. We have one son. My sister was caddying for me at the time. She was here today. She has two kids.

Back in the Los Colinas days I thought this event couldn't possibly survive, not least because the kids wouldn't even know who Byron was.  What we see in that priceless photo above, though, is the last actual connection to Nelson, which only works because Scottie is a local boy.  Nelson was far greater and of far greater importance than is apparent from his playing records, his seemingly min\or haul of five majors, mostly because Byron only played until he had set aside enough money to buy that farm for Peggy and himself.  After that he retired early and dusted off his clubs 3-4 times a year, still a force, but a semi-retired force.   

You'll not be shocked to know that I hate the new name of the event, the CJ Cup Byron Nelson something-or-other, though I've evolved to begrudging acceptance.  Because the event would have died absent such a move, and at least a new generation of players might, who am I kidding, be sufficiently curious to investigate who Byron Nelson was.   Those that go to that effort will be rewarded, though we know how the current generation feels about dead white guys.

At this juncture I'm going to riff on this week's Tour Confidential panel, and then start hacking away at the pile of papers on my desk.  Though I haven't even looked at it, so we'll see how it goes:

Scottie Scheffler dominated the CJ Cup Bryson Nelson, closing with a third round of 63 or better to win by eight over Erik Van Rooyen. It was Scheffler’s first win in 2025, following his epic 2024 season of nine wins. So… what took so long?!

Josh Sens: First, a tragic ravioli-making incident that sidelined him for a spell. Then a run-in with the reality that winning is hard and often comes with the tiniest margins. Scheffler now has nine starts this year and this to show for it: a win, a runner up, five top 10s and not a single missed cut. What a slacker.

Sean Zak: Other people got in the way. Rory McIlroy, for one. Justin Thomas being another. Scheffler was probably 85% as good this year as he was last year — and that 15% is just enough to let one or two other guys have their best week. It’s just a numbers game, but the numbers he put up this week should scare the rest of the field, McIlroy included.

Josh Schrock: A little bit of rust and good play from Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and others kept Scheffler out of the winner’s circle. Before the Masters, Scheffler admitted that the ravioli injury set him back a little and that while he was pain-free, his hand still needed to be strengthened, which led to un-Scheffler-like ball-striking. It was only a matter of time.

Fair enough, though I couldn't have been the only one to wonder whether the hand injury was a long-term issue, though it only takes one week at -31 to dispel those concerns.  Given Rory and JT's track record at Quail Hollow, the forthcoming PGA Championship tees up to be pretty intriguing.  But if we assume that those three guys are hitting on all cylinders, I like that Scheffler guy.

The win is Scheffler’s first in nine starts this season; he had four in 10 starts at this point last year, on his way to seven. What side of the fence are you on: that this is the first step of another scorching Scheffler summer? Or is last year’s total too unrealistic to match?

Sens: I think we can fairly expect a scorching summer from Scheffler. But yeah, last year’s total was so outlandish, I don’t see him matching it, which doesn’t mean he might not also win Player of the Year for the third season in a row. Lots of golf left.

Zak: Yes, I think this pops the top off. I think he wins three more times this summer, at least one of those in a major. Last year’s total is too unrealistic to match, but who cares?

Schrock: Is he going to win six more times this year? Probably not. But I fully expect him to knock off a few more and win the first non-Masters major of his career. Put him down for Oakmont, a title defense at the Travelers and at least one playoff event.

I'm not as blown away by Scottie's 2024, because I fixate on those tiny field sizes.  Of all those wins, only the Players Championship had what I consider a full field, so there's that.  

But the whole in his resume is non-Augusta majors, so isn't that really the question for the remainder of 2025?  You'd think he'd pick off one or more, no?

Also victorious this week was Bryson DeChambeau, who won LIV Golf Korea for his first of the year. With the PGA Championship just two weeks away, who needed this first victory more, Bryson or Scottie?

Sens: Hard to say that either really “needed” a win. But I’d give the nod to Scheffler. He had some close calls and uncharacteristic stumbles — to the point where he showed some very outward signs of frustration, and even borderline snippy-ness in some of his exchanges with the press. For a guy as at peace with himself as Scheffler, I guess you could say that the dry spell had begun to eat at him a bit.

Zak: I think it’s Bryson. He had let wins slip a few times recently on LIV. And he kinda let the Masters slip, too. So starting the day with a lead and shutting the door was good to see. You can bet he thinks his best is still better than Scheffler’s.

Schrock: It’s definitely Bryson. He held the 36-hole lead in Miami and got run down by Marc Leishman. He scored well through three rounds at Augusta and somehow held an early Sunday lead before iron play nuked his chances to win. He held the 36-hole lead last week in Mexico but lost to Joaquin Niemann. If he had lost to Richard Bland or Charles Howell III, I think the confidence would have taken a hit heading into Quail Hollow. Scottie could have finished T10 this week, and my opinion of him wouldn’t have changed. Had Bryson blown a four-stroke lead in Korea, I’d be down on his chances in two weeks. As it stands, I think he’s the best [only?] chance at a person not named Scottie or Rory winning at Quail.

OK, silly bit... The wins were no doubt useful to both, but only needed in the sense that the same could be said for every guy out there.  I'm more focused on how well the PGA sets up.

They've got a couple more bits that I'll throw up just because it's so effortless:

Brandt Snedeker (USA) and Geoff Ogilvy (International) were announced as Presidents Cup captains for the September 2026 event at Medinah Country Club outside of Chicago. Like the picks? And why might Ogilvy be the guy to end the International squad’s drought?

Sens: Sure. Both likable players who have been around long enough to earn their peers’ respect

on and off the course. Could Ogilvy be the guy? Maybe. He’s got a great match-play record, including two wins at the WGC Championship. But ultimately, I think the influence of captains gets overstated in these events. The captains don’t hit shots or stroke putts. Pep talks and strategic pairings only go so far. In the end, it comes down to the players. And no matter how you shuffle things, the U.S. still has the stronger team.

Zak: I think we are seeing the result of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson both not being available to captain right now. This era of teams was supposed to be led by them, and neither are anywhere near assuming that position. So, we get Keegan at the Ryder Cup — which his own play may negate — and a non-major-winner but overall “good guy” in Snedeker. Is that enough? Does it matter? I’m not sure it does. But something tells me Ogilvy will do a good job (in defeat) and then retain the position for the next Prez Cup, in his homeland, at Kingston Heath.

Schrock: I like the picks. I’m not sure how much they matter. If the U.S. is going to continue to trot out six of the top 10 players in the world every two years, the International side probably doesn’t have much of a chance. I don’t think Ogilvy leads them to victory in 2026, but perhaps in 2028 when they play in Australia.

All good stuff, but as we head into the heart of major season and eagerly anticipate Bethpage, I find myself without any bandwidth to contemplate the Prez Cup.

I guess I've allowed Prez Cup venue announcements to slip by, but Medinah?  That's what this struggling event needs, is for the 2026 iteration to include all those sepia-toned memories of....wait for it, the 2012 Ryder Cup.

There are only two words in all the above that mattered to me, and those were "Kingston Heath".  That's worth waiting for.....

World No. 4 Collin Morikawa has replaced long-time caddie J.J. Jakovac for Joe Greiner, who used to be with Max Homa and who recently won as a fill-in with Justin Thomas at the RBC Heritage. Morikawa has played well lately but is still winless since the fall of 2023. How much influence can a new caddie have? A little or a lot?

Sens: A lot, especially in the short run. Sometimes, it’s just the psychological shift that comes with making a change. I don’t mean to dehumanize the player-caddie relationship, but I think there’s an analogy to be made with the seeming magic of swapping out a putter and suddenly draining every putt you look at. You start feeling better, the confidence builds and a positive feedback loop kicks in. For the benefits to endure long term, though, there’s got to be more to the dynamic than just that sudden sugar rush.

Zak: A new caddie can have a ton of influence … in either direction. That’s why there are so few changes! Because bringing a new person into that walking, walking and gawking is a vibe-shift that players will notice. From the way Morikawa explained it, it sounds like that’s what he was seeking — a vibe-shift. Possibly during contention the most.

Schrock: The vibe-shift might help Morikawa get over the hump if he immediately puts himself back in contention. He hasn’t been playing bad, but when things feel off, it’s time to change things up. If getting Greiner on the bag helps give him a different Sunday feel when he’s in contention, then the move was worth it, but in the end it’s on Morikawa to execute the shots down the stretch when he’s under pressure.

No one really knows, which is why it's an interesting subject.  Though, for those that have listened to me rant about Harry Diamond all these years, I'm typically more amused by the caddies that inexplicably retain their jobs.

With my eye on the exit, I'll just leave you with this adorable father-daughter bit:

Daughter Poppy’s uncomfortable question during Masters week after attending the day care provided to player families: “So they did this kid’s photo one day, and they all got these Augusta National T-shirts. On the back of them was a list of all the past winners up until 2024. Poppy came up to me one day and said, ‘Dada, why is your name not on the back of the T-shirt?' When I won I came back and said ‘Poppy, my name is going to be on the back of the T-shirt.’”

Sweet, though one feels they were intentionally tweaking Rory....

That will have to suffice for today.  We'll meet again down the road.... 

Thursday Threads - Slow News Cycle Edition

I've been planning Thursday as a blogging morning, but that gosh darn news cycle isn't cooperating..... This might not take long....

Chevron Memories - The Tour that couldn't shoot straight continues to flounder.  While it's hard to contemplate a major commercial entity like Chevron being a negative, but when it locks you into a bad calendar slot at a dreary venue, how is it helpful?

Unsurprisingly, viewership wasn't great, although not as big a drop as I would have expected:

Chevron Championship: NBC averaged 811,000 viewers for Sunday's final round, which saw Mao Saigo come out of a five-way playoff.

Prior two years were 936,000 (Nelly Korda) and 941,000 (Lilia Vu). pic.twitter.com/oRhmKpP5WL

— Josh Carpenter (@JoshACarpenter) April 29, 2025

At this juncture, there are maybe two players that can bring eyeballs to the living room TV.  Given the absence of anyone named Nelly or Lydia from said leaderboard, these bad but not dreadful numbers will likely come as a relief.

The header to Dylan Dethier's Monday Finish column includes a reference to major championship golf getting weird, and he pays that off by listing the entire sequence of weirdness on the 18th hole at the Chevron.  It's lengthy, but I've already tipped my hand that I need filler:

GOLF STUFF I LIKE

Eyes on the prize.

Here are a few things that happened on or around the 18th green in the final hour of play on Sunday at the Chevron, the first women’s major of the year:

–Ariya Jutanugarn, needing birdie to definitely win and par to likely win, whiffed a chip from behind the 18th green and wound up making bogey.

–Haeran Ryu took several minutes to play from the fairway, took an extra club, nuked one into the grandstand, took several more minutes to figure out a drop — and then chipped in for eagle.

-Several pros got up and down from around the grandstand and made birdie to tie the lead.

-Five women finished at 7-under par, setting up a mega-playoff.

–Ronni Yin hit a sensational fairway-wood approach in the playoff, setting up a good look at eagle — and then three-putted.

-Jutanugarn missed a short putt for birdie when it horseshoed around the hole and out.

The last woman standing was Japan’s Mao Saigo, the 23-year-old rising star from Japan, who made birdie to get into the playoff, was the only player to make birdie in the playoff and walked off a winner.

That’s when things went from strange to downright scary. Saigo took the traditional winner’s jump into Poppie’s Pond — but soon was grabbing onto her caddie, Jeffrey Snow, for help.

“I’m not really a good swimmer. When I went inside, it was deep and at first I thought I was going to drown,” she said in her winner’s press conference. Yikes!

Beth Ann Nichols tracked down the details, reinforcing that a good caddie is there for their player when they need it; credit to Snow for going 19 holes on Sunday and pulling off his most crucial carry post-round. Let’s just say we’re impressed with Saigo’s two clutch birdie putts and not dwell too much on what would have been. A warm robe, some drama and a sense of relief — that’s golf stuff I like.

Perhaps only an actual drowning could have provided a fitting ending for that sequence of events.

While I understand Dylan's embrace of chaos, is this really golf stuff we like?  Or, asked a different way, do we think the ladies put on a good show?  Because I think it was major squandered opportunity, one in which their product was largely unwatchable.

I like women's golf and I want it to succeed, but often it seems me that they don't understand their product and its appeal.  The good news is that more folks than expected tuned in.  The nagging question the lades should be asking themselves is whether they liked what they saw.

Mixed Golf - Olympic Update - This tab as admittedly been open for a while, but it's an obvious segue from the above musing about women's golf:

International Golf Federation announces format for mixed-team competition at 2028 Olympics

Do tell:

The International Golf Federation confirmed the IOC's addition of a mixed-team event, which will debut at the Riviera in 2028. It will take place after the men's competition and before the women's, with all of them taking place at Riviera Country Club.

“We’re absolutely thrilled to see a Mixed-Team Event added to the program for Los Angeles 2028,” IGF Executive Director Antony Scanlon said in a release. “Golf was incredibly successful at Paris 2024, and as we continue building on the momentum from Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, we’re excited to bring even more attention to our sport through this additional format. The athletes were very enthusiastic about their desire to play with their compatriots, and we look forward to watching them compete together in Los Angeles.”

The mixed-team event will be contested as a 36-hole competition featuring 18 holes of foursomes (alternate shot) for the first round, followed by 18 holes of four-ball (best ball) for the final round.

Sounds promising.  You'll have guessed that I'm especially intrigued by the alternate shot format.  But golf and the Olympics are an awkward fit, so what haven't they told us?

There will be a maximum of one team per country, with teams comprised of one male and one female who are already qualified for the Men’s and Women’s Individual Olympic Golf Competitions, per the announcement.

Thud.  One team from the U.S. means it's not a competition, it's an exhibition.  Is watching Scottie and Nelly play alternate shot interesting?  Especially at Riviera, where I'm curious as to who will hit the drive on the 10th hole, but you see the issue.  We think of the golf, but the IOC is driven by the number of dorm rooms.  There is probably no way for them to accommodate a proper field size, even a paltry Signature Event field size, so it can never be a meaningful competition.  If it's not a competition, what is it?  I call it an Exhibition, but you might have other thoughts.

M-I-C-K-E-Y -This piece is currently up at ESPN:

Top players, best moments and more at the PGA Tour midpoint

My first pass answer is that there haven't been any, but hold that thought for a second as we focus on the concept of being midseason.

Because there's also this:

You probably wouldn’t change the Super Bowl’s rules in the middle of the NFL’s regular season. You wouldn’t tweak the World Series at the All-Star Break. But the PGA Tour still feels it hasn’t quite nailed the recipe for its big-money, season-ending Tour Championship — so it’s planning to tweak the format. Those changes could happen in the next few weeks. And they could take effect as soon as this season.

On the one hand, that seems like a wild move considering the stakes; the FedEx Cup awards $25 million to its winner and $100 million in total. On the other hand it makes all the sense in the world — if you’re dishing out that big a prize, you’d like to make sure you’ve got it right.

Fair enough, but wouldn't it be appropriate to note that this event has had more tweaks than Zsa Zsa Gabor?  I'm sure they'll get it right this time, but the best way to avoid being considered a Micky Mouse Tour is, yanno, to stop acting like a Mickey Mouse Tour.

WHAT WE DO KNOW

Starting strokes are likely to be eliminated, per Scott, who said that he thought “everybody involved” wanted to ditch the confusing staggered-start format.

But match play, which was likely the flashiest potential addition to the format, seems unlikely to get incorporated, either.

“It’s hard to wrap your head around you play one style all season and then your final event is an entirely different format,” Scott said.

It seems like they have reached consensus; Sam Burns told Schupak that the Player Advisory Council met at last week’s RBC Heritage and reached a preferred format. Now it’s a matter of getting other stakeholders — broadcasters NBC and CBS, plus sponsors like FedEx, Coca Cola and Southern Company — on board.

Kevin Kisner, who wears multiple hats as a Tour pro and NBC analyst, teased out one TV-approved potential format where they’d cut the field down to 16, then to eight, then to four to ramp up drama. But that seems unlikely to be the final answer.

“I think it will be a more traditional tournament with more consequence,” Kisner told Schupak. “I don’t want to spoil the surprise too much.”

“It’s going to be a better tournament for the players, a better tournament for the sponsors and really everyone involved,” Burns said.

Change is coming. Players seem excited. The new format will likely be greeted with some skepticism. But one thing will measure its success: whether there’s an immediate push to change it again.

So, nothing then?  

This event almost can't work, because the Tour brass can't decide whether it's a season-long contest or a year-end shootout.  They want it to be both, but the internal contradictions are doom it.  To the extent that they're giving us anything of substance, it feels like a bit of push towards the latter.  But when they speak of whittling the field down to four guys, that will die when they realize they can't just pick the four guys   

Back to that ESPN item for just a sec, as this reminds of Jay's existential anxiety:

Best victory

The Masters, the first major championship of the season, provided golf fans with everything they could possibly want: Rory McIlroy vs. Bryson DeChambeau in the final round. High drama on the second nine at Augusta National in Sunday's final round, thanks to McIlroy's near-collapse and Justin Rose's stunning comeback effort.

Rose, who carded a 6-under 66 in the final round, sank a 20-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole to put even more pressure on McIlroy, who had squandered a four-stroke lead. McIlroy missed a 5-footer for par on No. 18 to force a playoff with Rose.

On the first playoff hole, Rose hit his approach shot to 15 feet of the hole on the No. 18 green. McIlroy hit his second to 4 feet. Rose missed his birdie putt, and then McIlroy sank his to capture his first green jacket in his 11th try.

"This is my 17th time here, and I started to wonder if it would ever be my time," McIlroy said. "I think the last 10 years coming here with the burden of the Grand Slam on my shoulders and trying to achieve that, yeah, I'm sort of wondering what we're all going to talk about going into next year's Masters."

So, the best victory on the PGA Tour this season is not an actual PGA Tour event.....  In the existential struggle for professional golf, I don't quibble that LIV looks to have fewer cards to play than the PGA Tour, but the Tour position is quite tenuous as well.  The schism in the game has only served to elevate the importance of those four majors, to the detriment of the Tour.

Stuff I Like -  Hey, if Dylan can use it fill out columns, why not a humble blogger?  Do you know the name Clifford C. Wendehack?  The man literally wrote the book on golf clubhouses, and designed many of the greatest versions thereof:

Have you ever stepped into a clubhouse so beautiful, so historic, so relaxing that you wished you could live there? Well, now’s your chance … sort of. Enter 7 S Mountain Ave. in Montclair, New Jersey, a rare residential foray by Clifford C. Wendehack, the architect responsible for many of the Tri-State’s finest clubhouses including Winged Foot, Bethpage State Park and Ridgewood Country Club. The elegant French Norman-style estate hit the market last month and could finally make your dream a reality … provided you have $1.7 million in the cookie jar.

Pretty great, though I'd rather belong to Winged Foot than live there.

Just a couple of fun headers, and then I'll release you into the general population:

Oz the Mentalist reveals Scotties Scheffler’s ATM code to the entire world in latest viral stunt

I haven't clicked through, because the article can't live up the header, can it?

This as well:

Did I dishonor the game via handicap shenanigans?

No, you dishonored yourself.  The game will be fine.

I know, a bit of a thin post, but it will just have to sate you until we meet again.  Have a great weekend. 

Weekend Wrap -

Which insufferably humid Southern city held the more absurd event this weekend?  That was mostly rhetorical, as Geoff ledes with the dispiriting singularity:

It’s not easy to put on a successful golf tournament. These weird little gatherings of golfers require hundreds of people and lots of luck to pull off. It takes very little to negatively impact how we

reflect on the outcome and remember a week. But in general, the winning formula typically involves a strange concoction of venue, weather, market, history, media, players, agronomy, volunteers, and fan turnout. Oftentimes, it’s a lot like a magical performance where the set list, setting and something mysterious in the air allowed musicians to take their art to another level. In golf, it’s usually a properly prepared course with a special setting and fan vibe that takes 72 holes of generally boring stroke play and produces something magical.

This was not one of those weeks.

And the fault lies with forces far beyond the control of players or the people who put in long hours to make tournaments go. Not helping matters: we’re coming off an absurd Masters. The bar is unfairly high right now. But this weekend’s first LPGA major and only team event on the PGA Tour reinforced just how the pursuit of a buck or desire for control can undermine the otherwise noble mission of giving players a stage for success.

Not sure I'm completely on board with Geoff here, though the two events combined for quite the odd Sunday.  But where I part with Geoff is that the event featuring better food was always been a PGA Tour backwater, whereas the ladies were putting on what used to be their best event of the year.....

Houston, You ARE The Problem - Ironic that Geoff would cite the Masters hangover, missing that 600-lb. elephant in the corner, to wit, that it's those very Lords of Augusta that put the LPGA in this mess.  They had a great first major, so naturally the golf world couldn't let that stand.

Your humble blogger was sitting in front of a fire watching the Zurich because, yanno, alternate shot can be fun.  Employee No. 2 yelled from the kitchen that the ladies were beginning a 5-player playoff, and my reactions were fairly humorous.  First, I asked Theresa, "Do we know any of the ladies involved?", a question never to be asked about the LPGA for obvious reasons.  My second reaction, when I realized I did know one of the ladies, was even funnier.

Shall we allow Geoff to rant?

The Chevron Championship finished its third year at Carlton Woods outside Houston and

appeared to lose whatever momentum the tournament enjoyed after Nelly Korda’s dramatic win in 2024. The major formerly known as the “Dinah” never felt remotely close to a big, important, and distinguished event until Sunday’s 18th hole shenanigans. That’s when the golf was surrounded by crowds that could be called, well, crowds. Over the previous three days, the galleries looked more like those of a college event. Worse, the all-important hospitality tents—the ones we were told three years ago were vital in justifying Chevron’s investment and the move away from greater Palm Springs supported by former champions of the event who also picked up sponsorship deals with the oil company—sat largely empty until Sunday. Then, the corporate chalets became a TIO backstop used by players to avoid taking on the lake fronting the green.

Then there is April in the suburbs of Houston. A lot of rain fell again, leading to soft conditions for three days. Sunday’s finale seemed more major-like thanks to superintendent Tim Huber’s crew getting enough moisture out of the greens. They appeared to restore a need for precision down the stretch. So they’ll always have that.

The final turd atop this Sunday sundae involved pace of play. The LPGA that cracked down on players practicing during pro-am rounds earlier in the week did nothing to speed up the final round. Setting aside a conversation over whether a major championship should have a pro-am at all, Sunday’s final threesome took an inexcusable five hours and 46 minutes.

Are we quite certain there aren't more turds to be found?   Geoff, I think might be focused on the wrong conversation...  This event should have a Pro-Am, for the simple reason that it's forfeited any claim to majordom.

As noted, I turn on the playoff and see Ariya Jutanugarn, and I'm quite pleased to see her.  I always had a soft spot for her, a player of tremendous physical talents who struggled to control her emotions on the course, hiding them behind a stoic, yet vulnerable mien.  I recount to Theresa her 2016 heartbreak, when  her devastating collapse down the stretch handed Lydia Ko that iteration of the Dinah.  I sense the possibility of redemption, utterly clueless as to how Ariya found herself in that 5-player playoff.

Let it be anything but another 18-th hole meltdown by Ariya..... Oh, never mind:

Before the playoff, the par 5 18th hole had already seen all sorts of strange stuff, including use of the corporate chalet as a backstop to get a free drop. The move backfired on Jutanugarn who hit one of the worst flubs in major history. Since this is a family newsletter and some of you are reading this over a croissant, orange juice, and coffee only the way Jeeves can brew it, I won’t embed the link.

By the time Saigo made birdie on the first playoff hole to win (after also getting free temporary immovable obstruction relief), the other four had missed their shots at birdie, including a nightmarish three-putt from Ruoning Yin. Unphased by watching the mess made by Yin, the 23-year-old Saigo putted last and sank the winning birdie putt to pick up her first major championship and LPGA Tour victory. This feat makes her the 46th player to earn her inaugural LPGA win at a major and first since Allisen Corpuz at the 2023 U.S. Women’s Open. Saigo is the eighth player to do it at the Chevron/Dinah.

There's nothing remotely surprising about a player abusing the TIO rules, it's pretty much an everyday occurrence in professional golf, the term of art being "grandstanding."  It's long frustrated me, because the answer is obvious and has even been occasionally employed, at least at Open Championships.  You can't avoid the tournament build-out, but the means to control players abusing it is to make the resulting drops be under unfavorable conditions.  

I only watched the playoff hole, but it certainly wasn't the LPGA's best moment.  Let's see what the Tour Confidential panel made of it:

Mao Saigo won the LPGA’s first major of the year, the Chevron Championship, emerging from a five-person playoff to win for the first time in her LPGA career. Although the talk of the tournament wasn’t just the 23-year-old’s win, but the chaotic finish, controversial 18th hole and more. What was your takeaway from a dizzying Sunday at the Chevron?

Jessica Marksbury: The LPGA has done so much to combat slow play this year, and it’s a shame that some long decisions down the stretch ended up as a part of the storyline on Sunday. But, that

aside, the grandstand issue is worthy of discussion. It’s a topic that comes up at plenty of PGA Tour events — and for good reason. I don’t think a grandstand should double as a why-not-go-for-it bail-out, but who can blame players for strategizing that way when the rules allow it?

Josh Berhow: The grandstands aren’t great. Here’s one way to look at it: middling weekend golfers would swing way more confidently if they had a backstop like that they could use. The best players in the world shouldn’t have that option. It’s especially rough when it’s on the last hole. That said, a five-way playoff to decide a major? Hard to beat that. Good on Mao Saigo for staying tough.

Dylan Dethier: It was delightful chaos. Good but bad. Maybe the perfect encapsulation was Haeran Ryu, who was out of contention but playing in the final group with two players who would end up in that playoff. But Ryu took forever to pull a club in the fairway, eventually took one extra, nuked it into the stands long, took forever to pick a spot to drop and then chipped in for eagle. Just a combo of the silliest stuff you could imagine and incredible shows of golf skill. That’s the beauty of tournament golf — but safe to say there’s room for improvement.

That Dylan Dethier description reminds me of J.B. Holmes taking most of my adulthood to pull a club on the 18th hole, though that one at least included the amusement of Holmes choosing to eschew any chance of winning by laying up.

Astute Confidentialistas will have picked up on the fact that this is a week in which the questions are not numbered, which correlates highly with inane questions.  Often this presents as Tiger sycophancy, but today is an even weirder instance of that phenomenon

Lexi Thompson contended at the Chevron and tied for 14th, and all of this comes in her first season following last year’s announcement that she’d no longer play a full-time schedule. Despite her plan to scale back, she’s already played four events this season and has received some criticism for her “retirement.” Is this fair or not?

Marksbury: Yes, I think it’s fair. Playing four out of nine tournaments this year certainly doesn’t look like a proper “retirement.” But Lexi did say that her plan was more of a “stepping away” from a full-time schedule than a proper retirement. When I spoke with her last year, it sounded like she was looking forward to enjoying more of what life had to offer away from tournament golf, like additional unstructured time with family, friends and not having to wake up to an early alarm every day. This schedule doesn’t seem to jive with that plan, so maybe that’s still in the future.

Berhow: I think the argument here should be regarding the definition of the word “retirement,” which is one she never used when she announced this on Instagram last year. Her words were “stepping away from a full professional golf schedule.” But let’s be honest, “retirement” rolls off the tongue a little easier than “will no longer play a full-time schedule,” so that’s what everyone has been going with. I don’t think she’s doing anything wrong. She said she won’t play full time; it’s up to her what that means. And when she does play it still gives tournaments more juice, so it’s a win for events and fans.

Dethier: It’s all a little strange and awkward, isn’t it? Like, we probably just didn’t need to do the farewell tour — we could have just come together and been excited for Lexi to find a little more balance in her playing schedule. I think we’ll get used to her being mostly around at the big events, and hopefully her newfound freedom continues, too.

I'm not sure on what planet a T14, five shots out of the playoff, would be considered  "contending", but I'm pretty sure it's not this one....

I'll confess to a lack of understanding as to the fascination with Lexi.... She came out at a tender age with great physical tale4nts and therefore great promise, the comparisons to Michelle Wie being quite obvious.  But the actual record never lived up to the physical talents, and that chasm eventually ate away at her confidence, and to this observer it became too painful to watch.

A couple of quick final points and then we'll move our focus to the weirdness in NOLA.  First, things that make a blogger laugh:

Mao Saigo's victory plunge at the LPGA Chevron turned scary because she can't swim

 Yeah, you can't make this up....

But there is a larger issue here, which is that the Chevron folks have tried to maintain the ties to the Dinah-era, and that should be a good thing, right?  But Dinah doesn't belong in Houston and their attempts to cling to the former event come across to this observer as just sad and needy.  Dinah has left the building, and you have to find something genuine down there to build around.

The second bit comes from Beth Ann Nichols, a major supporter of women's golf:

Nichols: LPGA's Chevron Championship must reclaim its status as golf's first major

I actually preferred the header on the home page and URL, which was "Three Years Into Chevron's Big Move, It's Time For Change.  I must be quite the astute observer, because I beat Beth Ann there by two years.  Heck, I was there when I heard the announcement that they were Houston bound.

The Masters hangover looms large here in Texas. Three years into the Chevron Championship’s move away from Dinah Shore and into a spot on the post-Augusta calendar, and it’s already clear that something needs to change.

First, let’s get the obvious out of the way: Texas golf isn’t anything like Mission Hills.

There’s much to miss about Dinah’s place, but there’s no indication that Chevron has any desire to move away from its corporate base in Houston. As it’s been noted many times, there’s no line of blue-chip sponsors waiting to do business with the LPGA. The long-term commitment of an American institution like Chevron – which signed on for a six-year partnership – can’t be taken lightly.

The Club at Carlton Woods isn’t spectator-friendly. It’s a long walk just out to the first and 10th tees, and there’s not much bouncing around between groups. Fans must either commit and go the distance, or hang out between the ninth and 18th holes, where there’s a variety of things to do.

Speaking of fans, the galleries have been sparse this week, though they did pick up Saturday afternoon. It doesn’t help that there’s an Ironman competition going on Saturday morning in The Woodlands and many locals understandably chose to avoid getting caught up in the race detours.

Not to mention the thunderstorms and high humidity that can quickly turn the festivities into a downright slog.

It’s also worth noting that media attendance at this event is depressingly sparse.

What to do?

A date change would help.

 Yes, but please pay attention, for a lede is about to be buried:

The LPGA should endeavor to do everything it can to reclaim the billing of golf’s first major.

Anything after the Masters becomes an afterthought with little to no build-up.

Finding a spot after The Players but before the Augusta National Women’s Amateur in March would go a long way toward reclaiming some of the national conversation. The week after The Players would put the women one week ahead of the PGA Tour stop in Houston and two weeks ahead of the ANWA.

Of course, the LPGA would need to make sure it could secure a big enough television window and, ideally, add another full-field event early in the year to give players more chances to qualify.

They had the perfect date, but Beth Ann doesn't want to say out loud that it's that very ANWA that stole their perfect date.   

I think Beth Ann has it right, though this lady wants to double-down on stupid:

Two-time major champion Stacy Lewis grew up in The Woodlands and would like to see the event moved to September.

“I think it needs to be played in the fall when the golf course is firmer and faster, in general,” said Lewis.

But that’s not all, Lewis would also like to see the LPGA move its headquarters to The Woodlands area, where there can be even more focus on what would be an LPGA fully-owned-and-operated event.

“Would be your last major of the year,” said Lewis. “LPGA owns it, blow it out.”

The fall, of course, is football season, so network exposure would be an issue, though Lewis notes that with the media landscape changing so rapidly, who knows what might soon be in play.

You know when the best time to play in Houston is?  Is never good for you?

Stacey ignores that their Open Championship and the Evian, the fifth of four majors, are already clogging up that part of the LPGA calendar, so Stacey appears to want to do unto the Evian that which got done to the Dinah.

But this is why what Augusta National did was so ill-considered.  The sports calendar is always hostile for the ladies, the weeks Beth Ann is speaking of will compete with March Madness and other major sporting properties, and it seems unlikely that any sponsors will see opportunity there.  They are well and truly s*****d, but they are also deep into a certain river in Egypt if they think they can make this combination of date and venue work.

Zurich Zeitgeist - Geoff captures the strange doings in NOLA:

Meanwhile, over at the PGA Tour where someone thought it’d be cool to be like the IOC and control all broadcasting pictures, sound, and commentary—even though no network partner asked for the courtesy—an outage of some kind knocked out the ability to show final round golf for several hours. This included the final portion of Golf Channel’s pre-network final round coverage that ended without explanation. After an hour or so of uncertainty, an official Tour social media account acknowledged the issue but gave few details. This went about as well as you’d expect.

The mid-round weather delay softened the outage blow since this would have meant showing last year’s taped final round until the storm passed. But since the PGA Tour wanted control of the compound as part of its current nine-year deal, they’ll have to explain what happened to cause such a huge embarrassment for their partners at Golf Channel, CBS and Zurich. The rest of us? We’ll have to endure months of make-good Zurich ads instead of golf shots.

It’s all quite perplexing since the Tour is quietly laying people off while sitting on $1.5 billion in private equity cash. While putting together $20 million comp packages for the Commissioner who engineered the bold, unasked-for new broadcasting structure that did not work on Sunday. And one that also included a pricey a new building where the Champions Tour announcers have sounded like they’re talking inside a shipping container. Under the Atlantic. In 1993.

I came home and tried to watch it on tape later, and it took me a while to figure out what a cock-up it was.  Here's the TC gang's take:

Andrew Novak and Ben Griffin won the Zurich Classic, holding off the Højgaard twins at TPC Louisiana. Now nine(!) years into the team format, what’s your review? Does it work? Would you tweak it even more? Should other Tour stops take notice?

Marksbury: I think this tournament format works so well because it’s unique, and not one of several team-play events on the schedule. It’s fun and different. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

Berhow: It works because it’s the only one. I don’t mind it; and I think players kind of like the change of pace. If they don’t, they get a week off. Although since it already doesn’t count for World Ranking points I’d even consider leaning into the uniqueness a little more with the format. What does that mean? I don’t know yet. But there’s opportunity here.

Dethier: It works because it’s the only one but also because we get just enough compelling teams. Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry upped the juice of this event the last two years. The Højgaard twins are an electric pair. And Griffin and Novak are the perfect duo of guys-that-seem-like-everymen but could actually just kick your teeth in at golf. Thrilled for them, happy for the tournament, bummer about the bizarre mid-Sunday power blackout. Thank goodness for the volatility of alternate shot; see you again next year!

I think it works because of the extent to which the event didn't work before the format change.  The way I see it, the Tour has been bifurcated into the Haves and Have-Nots, leaving Zurich as perhaps the best-positioned of the later (maybe Phoenix would nose them out).  Because of the team format, they at least have a hook to grab a top player or two, and on alternate-shot days they also provide a reason for us to tune in.  Let's not overstate it, because the team format got them Rory and Shane, but is there another comparable?

Best Player On The Planet - Always fun to throw Phil's hyperbola and other nonsense back at him, but is there a more enigmatic player than this guy?

Joaquin Niemann ran away from the field at LIV Golf Mexico City, claiming his third win in just the sixth LIV event of the season and securing a spot in the 2025 U.S. Open. Although why hasn’t this success translated to majors yet?

Marksbury: I guess there are a lot of factors you can cite here — you could compare LIV courses and its format to the PGA Tour, the depth of field, mental prep and more. But really, majors are just so, so hard to win. Rory is a prime example! I can’t help but think that Joaquin will have his major breakout soon — perhaps even this year.

Berhow: His case is particularly odd because he’s yet to record a major top 10, but it’s coming. Like Rory going for the career Grand Slam, he got enough at-bats and someone with that kind of talent was bound to take advantage. The same will happen for Niemann eventually.

Dethier: What’s bizarre is that Joaco’s game so clearly travels. Winning in Mexico City at altitude — where you need plenty of math and some comical carry distances to contend — was just another reminder. We’ve known for a while just how talented he is. He’s become a better closer in recent years, too. But yeah, it’s time to see more in majors, though I get the sense he’s putting more pressure on himself than anyone could from the outside.

Not only do I think he's a strong talent, but he's also earne3d some begrudging respect by his willingness to travel and play to ensure his access to majors.  But despite showing us the goods in regular play, how do we grapple with this record?

In 23 Major appearances he is yet to record a top-10, with his best result of T16 coming at the 2023 Masters. He has made the cut in his last four Major appearances, however, and recently recorded a T29 finish at Augusta National.

Obviously it's a dreadful major resume, but the only citations come from the Masters, where the tiny field size renders those accomplishments not all that noteworthy.  The masters is the easiest cut in golf, at least once you have the tee time.

That's it for today, kids.  I'll be back later in the week, although it does seem that the Wednesday Game™ can safely return to morning play based upon the weather forecast.   So you'll not se me that morning,  which I can only hope won't ruin your week.