Morning Mishegoss

Canyons is reporting 5" of fresh white stuff, so this may be a quick spin through nether regions of the golf world:

• Modesty Blaise - Shackelford is having more fun than is seemly with the Colossus that is Patrick Reed.  First up, Geoff links to this Brian Keogh post at the Irish Golf Desk in which Patrick informs us that he would be OK with a Ryder Cup foursomes pairing with one Tiger Woods.  His rationale is as follows:

"I'd love to play alternate shot with Tiger Woods. Why? Best golfer who ever lived. We wear black and red. Ok, red, white and blue. But it would definitely be a red shirt that day.

"I feel that with the shot-making he has and the shot-making I have and with our short games, that would be a team that would be extremely hard to beat.

Geez, where to start?  Well, obviously with Shack's bitch-slap:

Excuse me, I hate to interrupt here, but HE wears black and red. You are copying him, to be accurate. But go on...

Folks, that's gonna leave a mark.  But do tell us more, Patrick:

"My wife actually calls him my twin star. I am reckless like he is. I like to go for everything. But at the same time, that's how we win events, that's also how we lose events. It's one of those things that we don't play scared. That would be pretty fun."

Of course one of the many reasons that I'm a Shackelford fan-boy is that he dispenses bitch-slaps without fear or favor:

But first, Tiger needs to make the team for Reed's dream to come true. He's not in the top 25 in the current points standings.

Note to self: Do an update post on Ryder Cup standings.  But really folks, somebody older and wiser needs to tell young Patrick to stick a towel in his mouth.  John Strege reminds us of how Tiger himself got off on the wrong foot early in his days on Tour:

When Tiger Woods was 21 and fresh off a 12-stroke victory in the Masters, he won his next tournament, the GTE Byron Nelson Classic, and proclaimed he had done so without his A game. He graded it a C+.

This did not sit particularly well with some of his tour brethren, who apparently were not happy hearing that his C+ game was better their A game. "He's making a big deal out of it, winning with his C game," Brad Faxon said then. "I told him, 'you'd better be aware of what you're saying and how it's being taken by some of your fellow players.'"

Maybe it's just me, but I'm starting to find wife/caddy Justine less cute and more creepy the more I hear.

Call me old school, but I'm going to second Johnny here:

Wow," NBC's Johnny Miller said about Reed. "That is quite the comment. It's better to do it first and talk about it second. You've got to hand it to him, he's confident."

The confidence isn't the problem, the mouth is.  All he has accomplished is to change the story from his success to his brashness, which can't help him, which makes it less likely that we'll root for his continued success.

• Tricksters -  Shackelford embeds this fun team trick shot by members of the Alhambra High School golf team:

Shack links to this original source, the Martinez News-Gazette, which he calls "an otherwise hilariously straight forward season preview."  Fair enough, though I found the author's profile to be more amusing than anything:

Author Archive: Gerardo Recinos
Gerardo Recinos is a journalist currently living in Concord, Calif. He is a recent graduate of San Francisco State University, with a degree in Journalism (History minor). Gerardo covers sports throughout Martinez, and it is his life long mission is to get people in the U.S. to stop calling football "soccer," and to call American football "handegg." 

Good luck with that "handegg" thing, Gerardo!

• Monster Mishmash - Reactions to the revamped Blue Monster are pouring in.  I've deliberately kept my powder dry to date, partially because I didn't see all that much of the event until Sunday. 

First up, Shack pens an open letter to Donald Trump posted at Local Knowledge.  Key bits:

I would concur that with a few setup tweaks, particularly on the back nine, the course will play better in high winds. Just having a year to mature will do wonders, as the thatchless but otherwise beautiful putting surfaces had that new green bounce that often even repels a spinning shot. Besides, there were still signs that good play was rewarded and poor play penalized. The field still managed nine rounds under 70 on Sunday after the players had been beaten up for three days and with some pretty tough final-round hole locations.

Now, about your comments to Dan Hicks and Johnny Miller about lengthening the 15th hole and blowing up the current 17th green to get water back into play. If you noticed the player feedback, they were pretty unanimous that there was too much water affecting play. There were 318 balls hit into the water last week, surpassing 2004's previous high of 220. This means you do not need to make the devilish little 15th any longer, in fact, I was saddened we didn't see it play super short with a front hole location. Anything would have been more interesting than that dreary final day hole location in the back right that limited birdies and took fans cheering for a ball rolling toward the hole out of play.

The most important thing to note is that a new course needs time to mature, and that we/Donald/Commissioner Ratched shouldn't overreact to some of the unfair bounces we saw.

Secondly, I could not agree more about the Sunday pin placement on No. 15.  It reminded we vividly of the 16th green at Augusta National, where the back right pin is so dreadfully boring.  I'll have more to say about that as we approach April, but at least the green jacket set have tohegood sense to use that bad pin earlier in the proceedings.  I also would not lengthen the 15th, as in calm conditions control of spin will provide an adequate test, and in high winds control of trajectory will do likewise.  

John Hawkins had these thoughts in his Hawk's Nest feature:

SPEAKING OF REDESIGNS, I suppose the dead-calm weekend at Doral will help everyone forget what happened Friday, when Gil Hanse’s version of the Blue Monster appeared inadequate as a Tour venue in a heavy South Florida breeze. There are no hard-and-fast rules in determining when a course becomes unfair, as the U.S. Open has reminded us over the years, but the second round in Miami was a rarity. 

We just don’t see actual PGA Tour events where iron shots land in the middle of a lengthy green and end up in the water, as was the case with Dustin Johnson’s approach at the par-5 eighth.  Phil Mickelson’s second into the 18th Thursday also blew my mind – it tumbled down a false front on the green’s left edge and rolled into Lake Donald, or whatever they’re calling it nowadays. 

Player reaction was predictably strong, especially given the high praise Hanse’s remodeling job had been accorded earlier in the week. Nobody loves a hypocrite, at least until the wind blows. “Good shot after good shot [repeatedly] ended up in the water because there was no good place to go,” Mickelson said. “I expected a little bit more from Gil, because he’s really good.” 

As gripes go, my personal favorite came from Graham DeLaet: “I’d bet $1,000 to any ‘scratch’ golfer that they wouldn’t break 90 on that course [Friday].” Given that it costs about $450 to play the Blue Monster under Doral’s new ownership, you probably need to have a real job to even consider accepting DeLaet’s offer, but the message is clear. 

“Look forward to coming back next year and playing Trump Doral after the changes,” tweeted Billy Horschel, who said he had three balls land on a putting surface but end up wet. “Should be a good course then.” 

Changes? Didn’t they just blow up the place? First and foremost, there were some critical tee- and pin-position mistakes Friday by the Tour, which rarely errs on the side of extreme difficulty. It’s as if the field staff never saw the 30-mph winds coming, which is hard to explain. We’re talking about Miami – at a resort no more than 10 minutes from an international airport. 

That front-left pin Thursday on 18 – the one that cost Mickelson at least a stroke – didn’t work. Again, we’re talking about a substantial, almost wholesale redesign, but then, the Tour consistently does an outstanding job at setting up first-time venues. This was a perfect storm, so to speak, and it will be interesting to see how Camp Ponte Vedra reacts to the situation

As much as I disapprove of some of the stuff I saw earlier in the week, I also like the idea of a World Golf Championship being won at 4 under par. It enlivens the non-existent WGC brand and gives this tournament a more distinct competitive identity. We’ve got enough 22 unders on the schedule. Tweak a few flagsticks, and Doral will be just fine.

Sorry for the long excerpt, but didn't want to cut any of it.  I do think the Friday set-up was questionable in view of the wind, though it was good fun watching the players prepare for the first Open Championship with forced carries over water.   As for the gripes about the pin on No. 18, that hole was almost unchanged (a few palms were added along the left side of the landing area), so what are we talking about?

Alan Shipnuck awards Doral both a Hero and a Zero in his, wait for it, Heroes and Zeros feature, though the Zero, "They were aware that it can be windy in Florida, right?" applies more to the setup, no?

In a rational world, the redesign would be recognized as a substantial improvement over what was there before.  As with any new design, the architect should watch early play and make tweaks as required.  At Doral, however, the grass is so immature that we really should give it another cycle before we draw any conclusions, especially as the Thursday/Friday conditions were towards the extreme.

• Heros and Zeros -  In addition to his Doral schizophrenia, Shipnuck has some other good stuff at the above-linked post, most notably this Zero:

2. Jamie Donaldson. Trying to chase down Reed on the closing holes, this long hitter laid up on the 293-yard 16th hole, ultimately making a momentum-killing par. The only person who liked that play was Chip Beck

I like a gratuitous Bert Lahr reference as much as anyone, but I'm not sure this is quite fair.  I haven't seen any ShotLink data, but it may be that Donaldson thought laying up to a good wedge yardage gave him the best chance of birdie.  The real question is why he seemed to hit too much club, or did he just miss his line?  As the old adage informs, if you're going to lay up, make sure you LAY UP.

He also shows us another side of The Most Interesting Man in Golf, this time the dubious distinction of throwing his club with world class élan.

Folks, the snow (and ski-buddy Mitch) beckon.   More later.