Loose Ends

Just a couple of quick notes before heading out to the first Met. Golf Writers Association event of the year...

Match-Play Mishegoss - Golf Channel comes on at 4:00 and will take us through prime time with the kick-of of pool play.  here's your schedule of matches (all times are EDT):

12:50 p.m.: Justin Rose Vs. Marc Leishman
1:00 p.m.: Ryan Palmer Vs. Anirban Lahiri
1:10 p.m.: Jimmy Walker Vs. Gary Woodland
1:20 p.m.: Ian Poulter Vs. Webb Simpson
1:30 p.m.: Henrik Stenson Vs. John Senden
1:40 p.m.: Bill Haas Vs. Brendon Todd
1:50 p.m.: Matt Kuchar Vs. Ben Martin
2:00 p.m.: Hunter Mahan Vs. Stephen Gallacher
2:10 p.m.: Jason Day Vs. Charley Hoffman
2:20 p.m.: Zach Johnson Vs. Branden Grace
2:30 p.m.: Sergio Garcia Vs. Tommy Fleetwood
2:40 p.m.: Jamie Donaldson Vs. Bernd Wiesberger
2:50 p.m.: Jordan Spieth Vs. Mikko Ilonen
3:00 p.m.: Lee Westwood Vs. Matt Every
3:10 p.m.: Patrick Reed Vs. Andy Sullivan
3:20 p.m.: Ryan Moore Vs. Danny Willett
3:30 p.m.: Jim Furyk Vs. George Coetzee
3:40 p.m.: Martin Kaymer Vs. Thongchai Jaidee
3:50 p.m.: J.B. Holmes Vs. Marc Warren
4:00 p.m.: Brooks Koepka Vs. Russell Henley
4:10 p.m.: Bubba Watson Vs. Miguel Angel Jimenez
4:20 p.m.: Louis Oosthuizen Vs. Keegan Bradley
4:30 p.m.: Rickie Fowler Vs. Harris English
4:40 p.m.: Graeme McDowell Vs. Shane Lowry
4:50 p.m.: Dustin Johnson Vs. Matt Jones
5:00 p.m.: Victor Dubuisson Vs. Charl Schwartzel
5:10 p.m.: Adam Scott Vs. Francesco Molinari
5:20 p.m.: Chris Kirk Vs. Paul Casey
5:30 p.m.: Rory McIlroy Vs. Jason Dufner
5:40 p.m.: Billy Horschel Vs. Brandt Snedeker
5:50 p.m.: Hideki Matsuyama Vs. Alexander Levy
6:00 p.m.: Kevin Na Vs. Joost Luiten

That's a lot of golf, and just the first of three such days, so please pace yourselves... Ya gotta love Bubba v. Miggy, no?  

I'll highly recommend this Sean Martin article on the predecessor event at this week's venue:

The City Championship has been held every year since 1917. Its endurance through the

Second World War is why it can claim to be golf’s oldest consecutively-played championship. Its former competitors range from World Golf Hall of Famers to taxi drivers, NFL quarterbacks to airport baggage handlers.

 And forgive the length of this excerpt, but we like our local flavor:

Archer, the 1969 Masters champion, also is a past City champion. Miller and Tom Watson, a Stanford alum, competed in the tournament, but never won it. Juli Inkster, a seven-time LPGA major champion, won the women’s division twice. 

Frank Mazion, a 6-foot-3 baggage handler at San Francisco International Airport embodied the blue-collar contingent that makes up a large part of The City. He won the City in 1979 and 1983. In addition to scratch flights for men, women and seniors, there are multiple net flights for higher-handicap players. Hundreds of players participate each year.

Mazion befriended John Brodie, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who later played the Champions Tour, after beating him in The City in 1974.

“Mazion looks like could have run interference for Brodie, or better yet, caught a lot of passes during a long National Football League career,” the Milwaukee Journal wrote in 1977, when Mazion was playing the U.S. Amateur Public Links there. “His golf clubs look like toys in his hands.” 

The friendship between Mazion and Brodie, forged at The City, is testament to its diversity. Riveters, roofers and cops are among the tournament’s past champions. Stephen Molinelli’s opponent in the 1993 semifinals was a man nicknamed “Scarecrow.” 

“He played in overalls, a flannel long-sleeve shirt and a straw hat. And he beat me,” said Molinelli, a former Olympic Club champion. “That’s the greatness of The City Championship.”

Broadie was the first athlete from another sport that I remember taking up and excelling at golf.  Steve Elling comes at it from another vantage point, filling in the background on its namesake.  Gotta love the header:

Harding Park: A presidential-caliber course named after a complete golfing lout

Careful there, Steve, I resemble that remark...

At least now we know where Michelle got
her putting stance.

The reasons why Harding was honored as the venerable course’s namesake aren’t nearly as apparent. Even among White House golfers, Harding was a mediocre player, and he ranked even worse as a U.S. president, according to pretty much any historian who ever drew a breath. His tenure was rife with corruption charges, presidential arrogance and a complete disregard for the public sector.

Hmmm...that last bit strikes me as more of a feature than a bug...

The course opened in 1925, two years after the widely scorned Harding – whose short term in office was marked by accusations of larceny and prison terms of a key cabinet member – died in the city’s Palace Hotel. Harding loved the city so much that … he was immediately hauled off by train and buried in Ohio. 

Having a lousy namesake hasn’t hurt the course in the eyes of players. It was designed by Willie Watson, who built the nearby U.S. Open venue Olympic Club, and Harding will host the 2020 PGA Championship. 

Overall, Harding was generally considered the second-worst American president in history, behind U.S. Grant, though some put Harding at the top of the list, given the scandals that engulfed his short term in the White House.

Let's hold that award for now, we've got an extremely strong contender right now.

Alan Shipnuck has a weekly Heroes and Zeros feature, and he awards the event One from Column A and one from Column B:

5. The Match Play draw. Ya know, that was kinda fun, and it’s created some nice pre-

He seems a nice enough lad.

tourney chatter. (Group 1 is a doozy! Shotmakers galore in group 4! Three sleepers in 8! Great matchups in 11!) The only thing that could have made it better was Steve Sands with a dry-erase board.

 And:

1. The Match Play Championship. Better city, better course, better date, a new format ensuring more stars on the weekend, but somehow it’s a lesser tournament, having lost its defining win-or-go-home urgency.

We'll see about that loss of urgency... but we get more actual golf as the trade-off.

Dateline, Chambers Bay -  Lots of chattering from the chattering class about the U.S. Open venue.  First Steve Hennessey posted some photos, including this one from the mouth-watering Shane Bacon:

Then Mike Davis jumped in by commenting about pre-tourney prep:

"I would contend that there is no way a player will have success here at Chambers Bay unless he really studies the golf course and learns it," Davis said Monday during media day for the U.S. Open. "The idea of coming in and playing two practice rounds and just walking it and using your yardage book, that person is done. Will not win the U.S. Open."

As Shack noted, that puts qualifiers at a significant disadvantage.  Davis had these comments in an interview with Luke Kerr-Dineen:

The routing itself is very interesting on this property. If you really study it, on the front nine, twice you climb the hill and you come back down and then on the back nine you traverse your way up the hill and come back down one time. And it really does make for interesting ebb and flow to the test of golf and certainly it adds to the endurance in terms of walking the golf course too.

But there are some neat things. I mean, for instance, one of the things that's unique to this is the architects put in what they refer to it as ribbon tees, these tees that just kind of meander. And it allows us to put tee markers where we want. And in some cases we may end up putting tee markers on slight slopes as opposed to you think, well, you're always going to have teeing markers on very flat areas. But there may be some where we give the players a little downhill slope, a little uphill slope, a side slope. So that's interesting.

WTF!  Interesting is an....ummm...interesting word for it.   Now this will shock you, but Ian Poulter has ignited a Twitterstorm with his reaction to other players' reactions...yeah, I know.  Shack has the relevant quotes here.

I must say, it's profoundly discomforting to be on the same side of any issue as Poults, but tee boxes should be on level ground.  After that it's every man for himself, but you should be guaranteed eighteen level lies with your greens fees.

It's A Growing Field, At Least in Baltimore - In recounting a bizarre story, let mu just note that the last thing in the world that I need is another unpaid position.  Yanno, I got one of those already....

But yesterday afternoon Christopher Ridgers and your humble correspondent formed the Willow Ridge Volunteer Fire Brigade.  Chris is our assistant manager and here's the story... The bride and I went out yesterday afternoon to enjoy the glorious weather, and were directed to the back nine before a high school team took it over.

In teeing off on No. 12 I noticed an acrid smell that seemed like someone firing up a charcoal grill with far too much lighter fluid.  But it just got stronger and as I returned to the cart my bride screamed "Fire" quite loudly and directed my attention to a tree behind and above the 11th green.  I grabbed the cell to call the starter and headed over.

Chris was about to tee off on No. 10 and had the good sense to grab as many water bottles as he could from the cooler there.  We were able to douse the fire with that water, though the club's recent decision to go to smaller bottles seemed regrettable in the moment.  As it was still smoking, Chris pulled a cigarette butt out of it that suspect was the culprit, though for how long it smoldered remains a mystery.  Yesterday was quite blustery, so it's easy to see how it got the required oxygen.

That's another first for your humble correspondent.