Memorial Daze

We had theater in the City yesterday, so I didn't see the Dublin denouement until this morning, though an entertaining three-hole playoff will barely register as the third most interesting story from the week:

David Lingmerth kept telling himself it was his turn to win Sunday in the Memorial,

even amid so many signs that suggested otherwise. 

He thought his 3-under 69 would be enough when Justin Rose shanked a shot from a fairway bunker, plunked a spectator in the head and had to get up-and-down from 55 yards on the final hole to force a playoff. And he did. 

Lingmerth was looking at a 10-foot par putt for the win on the first extra hole until Rose made a 20-footer for par that fell in from the right side of the cup, and suddenly the Swede's putt was simply to stay in the game. 

Lingmerth made them all until he was shaking hands with tournament host Jack Nicklaus to celebrate a victory he won't soon forget. He ended the three-hole playoff - the longest in 40 years at Muirfield Village - with a par putt from just inside 5 feet.

Lingmerth has been hanging around leaderboards for a while now, and he certainly comported himself well down the stretch and in the playoff.  Rose did as well, especially getting up-and-down after shanking it out of the fairway bunker on the 72nd hole.

But admittedly three years from now we'll all be stumped to name the 2015 winner, and that prjection might be equally applicable for three months and three weeks from now as well...

So, what might we remember from this week?  

The Tiger Bleat - Well, there was that Woods guy from whom we can't avert our gaze... He scraped it around on Thursday and Friday, missing fairways by knockdown nine-irons yet demonstrated an entirely useful ability to get the ball into the hole.  Then came moving day, and Tiger.... well, errr....how about we see how actual professional journalists covered it.  There was Steve DiMeglio:

DUBLIN, Ohio – Tiger Woods was the last player hitting balls on the range Friday night, working up a blister on the index finger of his left hand as he sent seven bags of golf balls into the horizon. 

The long session, however, was a cakewalk compared to what happened Saturday in the third round of The Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide at Muirfield Village Golf Club. 

Woods, a five-time winner here, shot the worst score of his professional career, carding a 13-over-par 85 and is in last place.

And Bob Harig:

The slow, steady progress that Tiger Woods said he has been making with his golf game came to a sudden, ugly halt on Saturday at Muirfield Village Golf Club. 

At the place where he has won five times, Woods shot a career-worst 85, including a quadruple-bogey 8 on the 18th hole. 

He made just one birdie and dropped to last place in the Memorial Tournament, six strokes behind the next-lowest player in the field, Lucas Glover.

 And Mark Cannizzaro:

How historic was Saturday for Woods, who has won the Memorial five times in his

career? 

This is his 321st career PGA Tour event and this was only the third time he has shot in the 80s. He had an 81 in rainy, wind-blown conditions at the 2002 British Open at Muirfield and shot 82 in the second round of the Waste Management Phoenix Open in February. 

Nothing encapsulated Woods’ day more than the 18th hole, on which he took a quadruple-bogey 8 and had fans in the gallery gasping at how a player with 79 career wins, including 14 major championships, can suddenly look so much like them on the golf course.

Glad to have these pros provide OJT for me, but now we venture onto the trickier ground of diagnosis with a follow-up piece by Cannizzaro:

It has come to this for Tiger Woods, the man who not long ago appeared on a fast track to obliterating every record golf has ever known: He appears to have competitive stage fright. 

Despite his 79 career wins, including 14 major championships, Woods — like so many of the rest of us mere mortals — cannot bring his game from the practice range to the first tee.

 I'll just remind folks that Tiger has always had first-tee issues, famously losing a ball on his first swing at Royal St. Georges one year.  But nothing like what we've seen recently, and of course his issues with the driver are seemingly getting worse.

That Van Cynical guy sorts through a range of issues, this one ringing very true to theis observer:

The Swing Syndrome. Amateur golfers call it paralysis by analysis. That’s when you’ve got so many swing thoughts in your head, you can’t execute any of them with any focus. Woods has gone through one swing change after another—from Butch Harmon to Hank Haney to Sean Foley to Chris Como. 

Tiger keeps saying, “It’s a process,” but he has chosen to change the process more than any other top player and it hasn’t worked. Haney’s book on Tiger showed how important range work was for Woods. He may simply have too many swing thoughts and too much muscle memory from all those previous swings to consistently produce great golf the way he used to.

Tiger's fans will not enjoy Gary's conclusion...

In his Morning Drive appearance earlier today. Shackelford speculated that the advantage of his familiarity with and success at Muirfield Village may have somehow actually be a detriment, and therefore he might do better at the unknown Chambers Bay.... OK, I'm unfamiliar with any tenet of psychology that will support this thesis, but we're all grasping...

In times of profound darkness I often times resort to considering what George would do, and by that I of course mean George Costanza.  Here I refer to the episode where Jerry convinced George that since his life was such a mess he should try doing the exact opposite of his instincts... who knew that informing an attractive woman that you're unemployed and living in Queens with your parents would get you laid?

Pace Costanza, I could see Chambers Bay helping Tiger to at least become less robotic.  On a links you have to hit golf shots and that might free his mind from swing positions.... obviously the key word there was "might."  There might be a few eyeballs on him when he steps to that first tee in Tacoma... let's hope he can find some game, because watching him go out first all alone is very sad...

The Duf Abides - Jason Dufner is going through a rough patch, a highly public divorce from the social-media-savvy but reputedly quite wacko Amanda, and some desultory play.  He did get some attention early in the week though for this:

With two second-round eagles including a hole-in-one at the par-3 16th, Jason Dufner has a chance break a longtime PGA Tour record for eagles in a tournament. Even better news for fans of The Duf: the 2013 PGA Championship winner looks ready to contend after a long slump.

OK, four eagles in 36 holes is quite the thing, and those two on Friday were back-to-back,  But that last assessment was premature, as the Duf stumbled in with 74-54-T24.  A wasted opportunity for Duf, but that's the game we play....

Mr. Rodgers Will be in the Neighborhood -  Loyal readers know of my disappointment at the qualification system for the PGA Tour, and the resulting roadblocks placed in the path of good young players.  Without rehashing it all, in order to sell a sponsor on supporting its development tour, Commissioner Ratched made that the only path to the Tour, requiring young players to serve a minimum of a year in the minor leagues.  A first world problem I'll concede, but it also delays the start of careers that and weakens fields, at least potentially.

In reaction to this we've seen players such as Peter Uhlein and Brooks Koepka head to Europe and Asia, and latest installment of this genre concerns Patrick Rodgers, a college contemporary of Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas.  Rodgers has won on the Web.com Tour but after a second place finish at Quail Hollow he needed just nine more FedEx Cup points (this may be a first citation for FedEx Cup points here at UL) to earn temporary status, but missed cuts at the two Texas stops.

Rodgers was well-positioned after Friday, but I can only imagine the agony of those final 36 holes:

Rodgers shot 69-66 in the Memorial’s first two rounds and was in fifth place through 36

holes. He made seven bogeys and a single birdie in a third-round 78, though. He made birdie on four of his first seven holes Sunday, but played the next four holes in 4 over par. His temporary membership seemed in jeopardy after a triple-bogey at the par-3 16th, where he hit his tee shot into the water. Muirfield Village’s tough finishing holes awaited him. 

He birdied both 17 and 18, though, to secure his status. He holed a 47-footer on No. 17 and a 9-footer on 18.

What a roller coaster he took us on, and of course CBS couldn't be bothered airing any of it until it was over.  Rodgers is sufficiently talented that once he's out there I assume he'll stick.  He still needs sponsors exemptions and will be writing many polite letters, but that was quite the bounce back on Nos. 17 and 18.