This and That

Back to regularly scheduled programming....not that RSP doesn't still include some Open-hangover items...

Heir Jordan - He's halfway to the Grand Slam, right?  Well not in the opinion of those that crunch numbers... though there are differences of opinion as to how long a shot it is.  Alex Myers quoted this in his weekly feature called The Grind:

-- Jordan Spieth will complete the calendar Grand Slam: 25-to-1 odds (actual odds)

The boys at fivethirtyeight.com, Nate Silver's old place, put some statistical meat on the bones with this:

That’s why the betting markets consider McIlroy, and not Spieth, the favorite to win

each of the season’s final two majors. After adjusting for the house edge built into betting odds, the sportsbook Bovada.lv assigns McIlroy a 13 percent probability of winning the British Open and an 11 percent chance of winning the PGA Championship; the site gives Spieth a 9 percent shot at winning each tournament. 

Those numbers are similar to the ones you’d see if you looked at how past back-to-back major winners did in their next two major tournaments. Of those who won back-to-back majors, only Tiger Woods — who won his “Tiger Slam” by capturing the 2000 U.S. and British Opens and the PGA Championship, plus the 2001 Masters — went on to win any of the next two majors, giving the group an 8.3 percent success rate per major.

First and foremost, note the quality of those names.... and also that Jack only won two in a row the one time.... Also a reminder that Phil stood on the tee of the 72nd hole of the 2006 U.S. Open with a one-stroke lead....  Bottom line?

No matter how you cut it, the odds of Spieth finishing off the Grand Slam are still fairly low — about 1 percent, if the probabilities above are any kind of guide.

Well, they certainly are unless they're not.... but lest you be worried, they do add this:

Even if Spieth doesn’t win the Slam, however, his future looks exceptionally bright. Back in April, we developed a model (based on the historical performance, by age, of people who won majors) to track Woods’s progress in his pursuit of Jack Nicklaus’s all-time majors record. If we plug in Spieth’s expected major count at year’s end — roughly 2.2, using the odds from Bovada — he’s currently on pace to finish his career with just under 12 major titles, a total that would rank third all-time if it came to fruition. (And remember, that’s just a mean projection — the variance around it means there are plenty of scenarios in which he wins more than 12.) 

Either way, it’s been an incredible start to Spieth’s career, Grand Slam or not.

Whew, you guys had me worried there for a bit...good to know that a guy that wins two majors by age 21 has a career in front of him.   Now those are generic odds, not taking into account anything specifically about Jordan himself.  Patrick Kiernan answers one obvious question:

-- Spieth has never finished better than 36th in the Open. In 2014 at Hoylake, he placed 36th at two under par, and in 2013 at Muirfield, he placed 44th at 10 over.

Now that's a sample size of two, so it means absolutely nada, nil, zilch.... and in both of those cases he played in Quad Cities the week before and didn't get to the Open site until late Monday.  With a Grand Slam in the balance, you can be sure that he won't do that again...What?

Now there is good news on this front, as apparently Jordan played quite well and took notes on his one time in the Auld Grey Toon:

"What blew me away about Jordan and Patrick Rodgers is they took notes and carried a yardage book. I’m sure he (Spieth) still has that today and has already looked at it." 

Spieth certainly learned those lessons well, as he stood 5-under-par on the 12th hole at The Old Course under sunny skies and calm winds, according to Holtgrieve assistant Robbie Zalzneck

That's all well and good, but if two is a hopelessly small sample size, how should we feel about one?  

We'll Be Back....Perhaps -  That's the question on everyone's mind, though these things play out on a very protracted timetable.... Shack assesses the golf course in a longish post here:

As the Chambers Bay U.S. Open continues to generate discussion, the course is a source of consternation for many. After all, there were those world-class holes like the 6th, 10th (pictured left), 15th (played from the proper tee) and the Puget Sound-side 16th. The 18th is a beautiful finisher when it's played when played as a par-5.

These world class holes give a sense of permanence that elicits a desire to walk, play or take in great players tackling their intricacies.  

And then there are so many holes that could not be looked past. They are the ones playing uphill toward the old gravel pit shell: the 4th, 7th, plus the 8th hole shelf and elevated 9th.

His basic gripe about the place, which seems on the mark, is that they (and we should include both the architect and the Pierce County folks in this) were excessively focused on using the elevation changes to create dramatic views of Puget Sound.  Here's his take on No. 10 pictured above:

Take Chambers Bay's beautiful tenth hole, cut through a huge dunescape and offering a small hint of water. No wonder the artists gravitate toward this hole for a painting. There is only a hint of water in the background, yet it's more beautiful than an in-your-face elevated view. It's a hole any golfer would be thrilled to tackle.

And do give this Mike Bamberger piece a little time, as he sums up the pros and cons:

Let’s go back to Andy North's comment for a moment, that the course is "a joke." North,

an ESPN analyst, is a measured man. But he has a notion, shared by millions of others, that a U.S. Open should be sui generis. He grew up, just as Jack Nicklaus did before him and Tiger Woods did after him, on fairways-and-greens U.S. Opens. You know the drill: narrow fairways lined by trees and heavy rough, and small, fast pure greens with tucked pins. That's not the Masters. That's not the British Open. But that's the traditional U.S. Open. And it has done an excellent job of identifying golfing greatness. A U.S. Open at Chambers Bay, to North, was like moving a British Open to an inland, parkland course. The USGA was messing with North's memories, and many others' as well. Nobody likes that. 

But here's why you can be certain the U.S. Open will return to Chambers Bay. The tournament finished in prime time on the East Coast. The weather was beautiful. The course is on the water, with trains running between the course and the shoreline. The locals are the nicest people you could ever want to meet. The problems can be fixed by hiring the right people to tweak the course and giving them enough money to do the job.

It also made Ian Poulter's head explode, so that's something we can all unite behind...

The course has it's virtues, but as both Geoff and Mike made clear it's just a bit over the top...Mike reminds us that several of the great links have significant elevation changes (he cites Dornoch, Balybunion and Cruden Bay), but they're nowhere's near as severe (220 feet in the case of Chambers Bay) and, perhaps more importantly, those routings are very judicious in their use of downhill shots.  Links turf and downhill shots are an obviously dangerous combination, that's why you'll rarely find a downhill Par-3 like the ninth pictured above.

But I also think this is what happens when you purpose-build a golf course for a U.S. Open, which is why this is so potentially distressing...

Say It Ain't So, Jim - Jim Justice has done a great job in revitalizing The Greenbrier, but is this really necessary?

Try this one: Recruit golf legends Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Lee Trevino to jointly design a mountaintop course, one noteworthy enough to get on the U.S. Golf Association’s radar. 

And perhaps one day, attract the U.S. Open to West Virginia. 

Nothing mentioned above has ever been thought of, much less attempted. Leave it to Greenbrier resort owner/gubernatorial candidate Jim Justice to chase the dream.

“What do we have left to do in life?” he asked. “If we can do something that’s fabulous for our state, we could bring a U.S. Open here someday, we could do all this stuff, my goodness gracious!” 

Yanno, there's few worse ideas than building a golf course just for U.S. Opens... If you succeed, and that's a pretty substantial if, you have a venue appropriate for its use one week every fifteen years.  The pity is that he's got one of the few authentic C.B. Macdonald tracks open to the public, but that's not enough....

Do You Want The Good News or the Bad? - Assuming that like your humble blogger you've little interest in the Hartford-based Travelers Championship, the good news is that they're playing the U.S. Senior Open at Del Paso Country Club in Sacramento... The bad news?  Well, it's on Fox....

And this was unfortunate news:

Fred Couples has withdrawn from the U.S. Senior Open because of a back injury.

Couples, 55, has a long history of back trouble. He missed the cut at the Masters and has not played in two months. Couples also pulled out of qualifying earlier this month for the U.S. Open, held outside his hometown of Seattle.

When I heard he was trying to qualify, I thought that imprudent of a man with his back history.  I'm not sure how deep into the 36-hole event he got, but seems ill-considered. 

Ka-Ching - I'm old enough to remember the days when winning an Open Championship didn't pay enough to cover the travel costs, so this is good news:

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland (AP) -- The British Open champion at St. Andrews next month will win 1.15 million pounds ($1.8 million), an increase of 175,000 pounds ($275,000) from 2014. 

The R&A announced on Wednesday that overall prize money for the third major of the year has soared by $1.42 million to almost $10 million. 

R&A chief executive Peter Dawson says ''this increase is appropriate for an event with The Open's global appeal.''

Which makes Alex Miceli muse (hey, musings are my gig!) as to whether golf's major winners re, you know, underpaid:

In tennis, the 2015 French Open offered a total prize fund for men and women of more than $30 million. By comparison, the sum of the men’s and women’s U.S. Open golf purses will be $14 million. 

The male and female tennis winners at Wimbledon this year will pocket more than $3 million. At tennis’ U.S. Open, the winners will receive even bigger slices from the richest of the sport’s four Grand Slam events, with a purse expected to top $40 million.

OK, let's acknowledge that you can look at this from amny angles, including that a tennis major covers two full weeks.  But I'm not much interested in Alex's line of reasoning, as it's simply way too difficult to compare the revenue streams of different sports.  

But how about a more trenchant comparison, between last week and this:

 Total Purse:

     U.S. Open - $10,000,000

     Hartford -    $  6,400,000

Winner's Share:

    U.S. Open - $ 1,800,000

    Hartford -    $ 1,152,000

My take is that Mr. Spieth has been hosed...all joking aside, a U.S. open win should be worth at least double that in a third-tier Tour event, but Socialism rules.