Just a few lighthearted items to send you off to your weekend with a wry smile on your face:
Today's Required Reading - Cameron Morfitt is far from the first to compare the player-caddie relationship to a marriage, but the important thing is that he handles it well. And since we don't see much of our hero Vijay these days (Note To Self: Check on the status of Veej's lawsuit against the Tour), it will shock you, shock you I say, to learn that Vijay can be a little tough on those around him:
Although Singh and Tesori promised each other that their second partnership wouldn't
It's not you, Paul...Oh who am I kidding, it can't be me.
revert to the way it was, old habits die hard. Having amassed six wins in their first collaboration, they raked in six more the second time around. The bad news? Singh, as driven as ever, was still dragging Tesori to the range on their off weeks.
"After another year and a half, I quit," Tesori says. "[Going back] was a decision I never liked. I did it for the money, the notoriety and the respect, and none of those were the right reasons. Jerry Kelly was top 30 in the world at the time, we'd done the 2003 Presidents Cup, and he was treating me well. It was something I said I wouldn't do again. When it's time to split up, it's time to split up."
Except, of course, when it's time to get back together.
Veej is no doubt the poster child for Battered Caddie Syndrome, but such are the unique demands and frustrations of our game that the nicest player, maybe the nicest guy on the planet,
If that's the case, Els and Roberts should be the healthiest player-caddie marriage on any tour, a love-hate relationship that has spanned eras from Norman to Woods to McIlroy. Els describes both himself and Roberts as hardheaded. Roberts calls them stubborn.
"With guys like Phil and Bones," Els says of Mickelson and his caddie of nearly a quarter-century, Jim Mackay, "you've got two different personalities. The one [Mackay] is going to kind of take it [the guff and grief] and move on. Those relationships tend to last."
Els pauses when asked which of his many breakups with Roberts was the most dramatic and, therefore, the hardest to come back from.
"It was at [the British Open at] Birkdale in '98," he says. "We were both fired up, and things were said. We had a frustrating week, and I didn't behave that well. It's a tough game. You've got to take your hat off to these guys. They put up with a lot."
They'll always have Oakmont....
Fun With Water - A couple of videos making the rounds united by the common theme of agua...first up, Web.com player Peter Malnati channels his inner Woody Austin and hilarity ensues:
I know, those white pants seemd like a good idea at the time... And this one leaves you wondering how the trolley and bag, you know, got there:
I've got two important words for the videographer: Landscape mode.
Plainfield Parsings - I only saw an hour or so of the coverage, as the weather was simply too good to remain indoors. But add to the "Is This a Great Game or What? files the fact that I couldn't design a golf course less likely to appeal to Bubba's "eye" than Plainfield, yet there he is on the top of the leaderboard. I'm not saying he'll stay there, but if he's in the right frame of mind one never knows...
And while I enjoyed the Cam Morfitt item above, one of it's obvious flaws is that it presented the Adam Scott-Stevie Williams reunion tour as a success. Yes, Scott threw up a torrid 64 in the final round at Chambers Bay to sneak into contention, but it would be hard to identify a more disappointing season than the Aussie's, especially with January 1, 2016 rapidly approaching:
Adam Scott, who won the Barclays in 2013 and finished fourth in the final FedEx Cup standings that season, is currently 94th and needs a finish no worse than solo 54th to quality for the Deutsche Bank.
And no sooner do I give Joel Beall props for his tongue-in-cheek take on the FedEx Cup than he posts this dictation from Nurse Ratched that leads one to conclude that his tongue is an an entirely different set of cheeks:
Sure, Horschel isn't a household name. That doesn't mean the FedEx Cup was given to
him. Man was scorching last fall, finishing second at the Deutsche Bank Championship before capturing back-to-back Ws at the BMW and Tour Championships.
So if someone not named Jordan Spieth or Jason Day wins this year's cup, don't shake your head in scorn. That player just beat the world's best over a four-tournament span. Such a performance deserves praise, not put-downs.
C'mon Joel, you're giving me whiplash here. The problem with the FedEx Cup is that we're still trying to figure out what it rewards. Yes, last year Horschel won the last two events and was clearly the best player over those four events. But there was also 2012 when a kid named Rory won the Deutsche Bank and BMW, so naturally he won the FedEx Cup, right? Yeah, that's my point...
OK, that's all for now folks, as I'm the lucky recipient of another invite to play Engineer's today.
Lots to muse about, so let's dive in on a few items of interest:
Wither Tiger, A Continuing Series - How to interpret his T10 at the Wyndham? I shant let the fact that I saw not a shot of it dissuade me from guiding you through this difficult moment...
First go read this Jaime Diaz Golf World assessment, which is unfortunately unexcerptable...Jaime's the best, and seemingly covers the good, the bad and the fugly, the latter being that chip on Sunday.
Then, as a counter-weight, do read Coleman McDowell's account of the highs and lows of Tiger's 2014-15 season, including this bit that seems like it was a decade ago:
TIGER TOOTHGATE
While watching his then-girlfriend (more on that later) Lindsey Vonn in a skiing competition, Woods had his tooth knocked out by a cameraman and wore a weird bandana over his face on the slopes.
Good times, man....
The Tour Confidentialistas kick the question around here and Shack offers his take as well, and you'll likely nod your head at times in reading all of these.
It would be churlish to argue that a T10 topper to Tiger's Annus Horribilis isn't progress of some sort, though I do think Shack over-interprets the positives in playing venues where he doesn't have scar tissue.
But we also need to be reminded of the field against which he competed, in which the winner's greatest accomplishment occurred in the 1990's and the high water mark of the second place finisher's career was winning a fiver off Retief Goosen after they'd both played themselves out of contention in the final round at Pinehurst a decade ago.
I'd also posit that we saw far too many of the recurring problems that precede this original Wither Tiger post from January 2014 remain operative...you remember the list:
Short-game woes;
Weekend woes;
Body woes, and;
Driver woes.
Yanno, just to mention a few. We will see Tiger at The Fry's, as he has an obligation to play there as a result of his playing in grabbing a large appearance fee in Turkey a few years back. That will be on a golf course where he has no scar tissue, so we'll just have to wait and see how that goes...
The good news though is that he now has something to fall back on and in this case seems to have solved No. 2 above:
Unlike its owner, Tiger Woods’ new restaurant has been killing it on weekends. So the hostess tells me, and I don’t doubt it. Even early on this Thursday evening, the crowd around the bar is as thick as a Tiger gallery.
It’s 5 p.m. -- discounted calamari! -- but to call it “happy hour” is an understatement. The vibe at The Woods Jupiter: Sports and Dining Club (catchy, right?) verges on euphoric. A pop soundtrack pounds from unseen speakers. Cocktails clink. Flatware clatters. Conversations swirl around a single subject, which is not the blue cheese crumble on the deep-fried squid.
Though this seems a tad disconcerting, at least if you were hoping that the man's hound days were behind him:
I squeeze my way up front, through a scrum of silver foxes and platinum blonds. The scene is moneyed Florida in microcosm, as if a nightclub mated with a country club. Many of the men look like Ted Bishop. Many of the women have that new-wife smell.
“Think he’ll be here tonight?” I ask the bartender, a comely twenty-something who, like all the staffers, wears sports attire adorned with swooshes. Hers: a Nike golf skirt and black Nike top. Natalie Gulbis would play her in the movie.
She cups an ear. I repeat the query.
“Who’s he?” she answers coyly, and hands me a margarita that’s only a shade smaller than the Claret Jug.
We all love that new-wife smell...
They Never Learn, Volume XXXVIII - No sooner do I tout Tommy's Honor to you, than word comes that it's being made into a movie. I believe it was George Plimpton that said as relates to sports literature, the smaller the ball the better the book. Unfortunately, when it comes to movies it seems that the inverse is true, as the next great golf movie will be the first.
The somewhat promising aspect is that the movie is the project of Jason Connery, son of you-know-who, and he seems to be treating it as a labor of love. But the book, which is so rich in detail and filled with memorable moments in the evolution of our game, will have to be distilled into a tighter storyline that will appeal to civilians, as happened with the Francis Ouimet story.
Then there's this as referenced in my title:
Oxton’s rising star of stage and screen, actor Jack Lowden, is finding that the plum roles now coming his way often require specific new skills.
Just having finished six months’ filming for the BBC’s new major six-part drama, War and Peace, in Russia and eastern Europe for which he had to learn to ride a horse, Lowden has now had to become proficient enough at the royal and ancient game for his new film.
“This is a completely different project for me, requiring yet another new skill.
“I’d never played golf in my life before,” Lowden told us from his home in London this week. “But someone had told Jim Farmer, the honorary professional at St Andrews who is instructing me, that I was a single handicap player.
“So you should’ve seen how the colour drained from his face at our first meeting and I had to inform him I’d never played the game before!”
Yeah, that's always a problem. Do yourself a favor and read the book... you'll thank me.
A Hall Of Fame Rant - No, I mean literally... I would have expected that Shack would be at Whistling Straits, but his epic ranting about the Omega ad featuring Rory makes me think he must have been forced to watch the CBS broadcast like most folks (and he had an unflattering post on that here as well):
Make you want to jump out of a helicopter without a parachute? Want to have a mute button chip embedded in your brain? Want to go buy a luxury time piece that your kids will sell on ebay?
These are the kind of important questions that must be posed as we move into a Weather Warning mode and, inevitably, soak up Omega's ad created for last year's PGA Championship. But for reasons only the Madison Avnue minds can explain, the piece featuring the screaching sounds of will.i.am singing to The Script's music is making an ubiquitous return across all major media platforms. Constantly.
And here's his scientifically-vetted poll question:
My only issue with Geoff is that he's so reluctant to share how he really feels about things...then there was this item, which is barely amusing but allowed Geoff to vent his spleen once more:
You can throw your hands up, you can beat the clock, you can move a mountain, you can break rocks, you can be a master, but you better not steal fake Omega clocks!
Because the news of 24-year-old Hugo Nguyen making it a half-mile with one of the large Omega clocks on site at Whistling Straits has only two explanations.
Either he was so enamored with the Guantanamo-ready hooks of will-i-am's caterwauling that he just had to have one of the oversized clocks as a way to remember the worst ad in television history.
Or...
Nguyen planned to hold the clock hostage while threatening to smash it into smithereens and perhaps take out other members of the oversized Omega clock community if the ad was not immediately pulled from the airways.
We may never know. But what we do know is Nguyen faces up to six years of prison time should he be convicted.
Free Hugo now!
And lastly comes news of a petition to save the planet:
Now this is what I call breaking rocks and moving mountains!
Somebody started a petition to ban Rory McIlroy's heinousOmega commercial from the airwaves. Sainthood is next for Tron Carter of the United States, who hopes to get 500 signatures to take to networks.
He writes:
For the last two years the golf community has been subjected to an endless onslaught of the Omega Watches Rory McIlroy "Standing in the Hall of Fame" commercial. Regardless of the event, tour or network, this commercial plays during every commercial break. The spot has ruined historic moments, a half dozen major championships, and countless psyches. And yet, we continue to be bombarded incessantly every time we turn on the television to watch golf. It's time to take a stand. Let's boycott Omega Watches SA, and it's parent company Swatch, until this commercial is pulled off the air and we, the golf community, are afforded sanity and closure.
I'd be surprised if he hasn't blown past 500 signatures by now.
Hall-Worthy? - Under Armour has come out with a new ad and it's kinda cool for our game to see one of our own featured with Steph Curry, what the kids would call a real athlete. It's pretty good for what it is, though I think you'll agree the Shack is way over the top in his praise for it, though will-i-am seems to have triggered some repressed childhood trauma in our Geoff:
Now this is what I call cool. And not because Under Armour refused to set their new big-budget ad against the heinous yowling of will.i.am. Nor did they set the golf against the backdrop of prop office buildings created at the expense of slave labor.
No, it's just a fun ad visually with captivating music from the soundtrack to "Glass".
Slave labor? Geoff, who do you think makes Under Armour's schmatas? Here's the ad, you make the call:
Playoff Fever - I was concerned that this might be a puff piece, but Joel Beall pulls off a helpful Q&A styled piece on everything we need to know about the FedEx Cup Playoffs year-end money grab. Here's a snippet:
Q: So the 125 players will be competing in these four events?
A: Well, the top 125 are eligible for in The Barclays. After that, the top 100 advance to the Deutsche Bank. That field is cut to 70 players for the BMW, with the Tour Championship hosting the 30 players with the most points.
Q: Not a bad idea! I'm guessing that condensed field produces only marquee winners?
A: Sure, let's go with that.
Q: You mumbled. One more time.
A: Well, the last four winners -- Bill Haas, Brandt Snedeker, Henrik Stenson, Billy Horschel -- have never won a major, let alone won one in their respective FedEx Cup championship campaigns. It's kind of the elephant in the room: How can you crown someone the playoff winner when they failed to compete at one of the four main tournaments of the season? This was especially true of Horschel in 2014, whose best finish at a major was T-23. So, the point equation is a work in progress.
Now class, as we've discussed innumerable times, the alleged playoffs are just a mess, a neither-fish-nor-fowl camel designed by a committee with no one strong enough to tell Nurse Ratched that she's out of her gourd. How much of a mess? Well, Rory and Sergio see no need to show up at the first round of the playoffs, and when's the last time you saw the Patriots or Spurs do that?
Shane Ryan does a pretty good job of exposing the FedEx Cup nonsense, especially since he's on the same page as your humble blogger about the mess being about trying to have it both ways. He suggests a match-ply finale which I think would be unfeasible to the networks, just think that last year the final match might have been Billy Horschel v. Chris Kirk, appointment television to be sure. But he's on the same page as I in advocating for a high-stakes shootout for the ten million large, and to just give up the illusion that it's a season-long event and that these are "playoffs."
But the individual events are high-money tourneys with decent to good fields sometimes played at interesting venues, the key word being "Sometimes". But we have one of those this week as The Barclays is back at Plainfield, the Donald Ross classic that was unfortunately a mudfield the last time they visited in 2011. Shack has a good post on the venue with links here, and word on the street is that the course is in great shape. Well worth a look...
Life Imitates Louis Jordan - The famous jump blues pioneer (you do know him, right?) famously said, "Everyone gets a share after I get mine." The Clinton's are the real world manifestation of this worldview, though they never push back from the trough to let others eat. So this item comes as no surprise:
For a long time, as Hope wanted, the Eisenhower Medical Center was the main financial
recipient of the Bob Hope Desert Classic. It stayed that way when it became the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic.
The hospital can hardly complain too loudly if, indeed, its piece of the pie has dwindled since Humana and the Clinton Foundation came to town. Since Hope put his name on the tournament in 1965, the Eisenhower Medical Center has received $34.7 million from it.
In 2013, it received zero. Last year, it received $225,000. This year's allotment is scheduled for November, with no guarantees.
Foster says that, in the beginning, "Eisenhower was a pleasant little hospital and we were fairly vital." He also says, "We have not been as successful as we want to be in recent years, raising money for the hospital."
The numbers are interesting. Amateur slots for the tournament are down to 156. Foster says the reduction from past amateur revenue is about $1 million. The Clinton Foundation has an annual guarantee of $1 million, confirmed by Foster. The current annual shortfall of the Eisenhower Medical Center from the golf event is $1 million.
The reality is that the Clinton Foundation is a political slush fund, and I've previously speculated that future donations might end up tarnishing the Tour's association with it. I do understand that the event was in deep distress, desperate times and all... Though I've long thought that the better strategy was to embrace their history and ties to the local community, I mean it's friggin' Palm Springs in January. How can that not work?
And yes there was some superficial synergy between Humana and the Wellness Summit that at the headline level bought them some time, but CareerBuilder,com? The only career that money is building is Hillary's...
What If They Held The U.S. Am In A Forest? - It saddens me how our oldest event, the U.S. Amateur, has so diminished in stature that it's an afterthought. Yes some of this is inevitable in a world dominated by professional golf and we'll agree that a 36-hole final is death for broadcast television, but even so... Lost in the hooplah over the Tiger-generated boffo ratings for the Wyndham was this depressing news:
It wasn't all great ratings news as Fox Sports's first-year coverage of the U.S. Amateur saw record lows across the board, averaging somewhere between .03-.04 for weekday matches on Fox Sports 1.
On the Fox network Saturday, the U.S. Amateur semi-finals drew a .23, down 43% over Saturday last year on NBC. Sunday's final match on Fox drew a .28 overnight, down 35%.
Both were the lowest ratings for the U.S. Amateur since Nielsen documented network television coverage started in 2003 (the weekend coverage appeared on cable in Olympic years 2004 and 2008).
And that's in a year with an interesting winner matching the NCAA-Am. double achieved previously by guys named Nicklaus, Woods and Mickelson (OK, Ryan Moore as well). And a guy with an entirely eccentric approach to the game:
In the late 1980s, Tommy Armour Golf pushed a set of irons called E.Q.L., based on the idea of a single swing. These clubs were built to 6-iron length. That set never gained real traction, perhaps in part because the company’s 845 irons were exceedingly more popular. While there is something of a technology lull in the iron market today, Dechambeau’s method is at least getting some buzz.
But before you head out and cut all your iron shafts to 7-iron length, you better recognize that you’re going to need more than one adjustment to make it work. And it might be an adjustment that standard golf clubs can’t possibly make.
“We are all used to swinging a golf club that’s basically D0 to D4,” Choung says. “So if we just arbitrarily cut these things down and didn’t have the ability to adjust the weights on it, you could end up with a 3-iron that’s super stiff with a swingweight of C3.”
I could see hitting a 5-iron with a 7-iron shaft, after all there's a reason why the pros typically have shortish shafts on their drivers. But a PW with a 7-iron shaft? I'm thinking this game is hard enough already...
Homage, St. Andrews Style - We've not checked in with David Owen in some time, and he filed a reader's trip report today that's right up my alley:
“At midnight, we joined him and a group of his friends for a misty walk to the graves of Old and Young Tom Morris. The cemetery gate was locked, so Phinney and Elliott had to help Nantz, Mark, me and all the other old guys get over the fence.
The him is Jim Nantz, who comes across as regular guy, even recording a cellphone outgoing voice mail message for one, which he had also done for a guy named Mickelson.
There was also this:
The Cohens and Sachses went back to the cemetery during the daytime, when the gate was unlocked. There was lots of death in the Morris family:
Well yes....that's what had my eyes tearing on the plane home, as Old Tom buried all five of his children as well as his wife. So will you please read Tommy's Honor, I don't want to have this discussion with you again..
Are you consumed with FedEx Cup Fever? Do you keep an abacus handy to update the various iterations and permutations of FedEx Cup points resets?
Buckle in, because this is going to be one of THOSE posts, yanno, one that assures that I will receive no Christmas cards post-marked Ponte Vedra Beach. But while Nurse Ratched will be held to account for this nonsense, I always start these posts with a couple of important caveats:
As majordomo of the most prestigious golf tour in the world, Finchem has a problem unique in the world of sports in not controlling the 4.5 most important events on the annual golf calendar (the half is the biannual Ryder Cup);
Finchie (hey, if Tiger can give everyone cutesie nicknames so can your humble blogger) has done a good to great job in a matter of great importance to his core constituency, ensure that they continue to peg it in pursuit of obscene sums of money.
I find both of those obvious points, but most of his actions to which I object are directly related to Item No. 1 above, and it's only fair to acknowledge the context. But I believe that he could achieve Item No. 2 in ways that would be far better for the game and those that play and watch it.
Now that the disclaimers are out of the way, let's wade in with this story that broke while I was away:
GREENSBORO, N.C. – A mix-up in how the U.S.Presidents Cup points list is
Robert Streb, the big loser in the recalculation.
calculated caused a series of uncomfortable phone calls this week.
PGA Tour officials informed a collection of potential U.S. Presidents Cup players on Tuesday that the list, which is based on points earned over a two-year period, had been incorrectly calculated and a new list, published Wednesday afternoon, showed a different lineup.
It's spelled s-c-h-a-d-e-n-f-r-e-u-d-e, making the calculation so complicated that not even the Tour itself screws it up. The only way it would be more enjoyable would be if it was discovered after the fact, though I think Streb's putting display with his wedge should earn him a special exemption.
Just a reminder that the Prez Cup was Tim's first attempt to deal with Item No. 1 above, creating an off-year event that would rival that event the Tour foolishly left with the PGA of America. Now the Prez Cup is reasonably inoffensive in and of itself, one nice group of gents from Orlando teeing off against another equally nice group of gents from Orlando, but as for rivaling the Ryder Cup, well not so much.
So, we find ourselves on the precipice of the 2015 FedEx Cup, and with the rise of the next generation of talent on Tour, I can't wait to see how they acquit themselves in this year's playoffs... yanno, for instance, Patrick Rodgers:
Only in the complex, convoluted world of professional golf could a promising newcomer such as Patrick Rodgers play so well that he earned spots on the two biggest American tours – only to be prohibited from playing on either of them.
With much fanfare, the mega-money FedEx Cup playoffs begin on Thursday, with the season-ending Web.com series set to begin next week. Yet Rodgers is facing a two-month break, because he’s ineligible to play in either series, despite being a Web.com member and having secured a PGA Tour card for 2015-16.
WTF? Here's the explanation though it's not really all that helpful in the explaining part:
As a top college player, Rodgers in 2015 quickly turned a handful of sponsor exemptions on the PGA Tour into gold – a card for next season. He finished inside the top 125 in FedEx Cup points to secure his status going forward, but since he was playing as a non-member, he remains ineligible for the FedEx Cup playoffs and the millions in bonus money on the table.
“A rule change that certainly needs review and discussion,” Buffoni said. “Hopefully, the tour will address this situation going forward, as players of Patrick’s caliber have proved in limited starts that they can compete successfully and deserve the chance to advance to the playoffs.”
Because of a new rule change instituted this year, Rodgers, 23, likewise can’t play in the Web.com Tour series, either, though he began the season on that tour, won in February and sits at No. 23 on the points list. (The top 25 at the end of this week earn PGA Tour cards for next season.)
But we'll surely see rising star Brooks Koepka, who of course has actually won on the PGA Tour in a full-field event: Not so fast...
I’m moving my bitching a little further down the line to the injustice that the PGA Tour
Looks like Brooks just got the news...
is bestowing upon the young idol regarding the Presidents Cup. Koepka famously chose to play the European Tour last year instead of playing the Web.com tour, and went the route of using his sponsor exemptions to earn enough money to obtain special temporary membership on the PGA Tour. He sealed up that membership rather early in the process, and played 16 events on the PGA Tour last year, nabbing two top-5 finishes, including a T4 at the U.S. Open. However, as he was not technically a member of the PGA Tour, he was unable to obtain FedEx Cup points.
My initial reaction is closer to “meh” than it is actual outrage. I’ve made it very clear in the past that I think the new qualifying system is terrible, but it is what it is. I don’t care about the FedEx Cup standings, or really even the playoffs for that matter, so I’m not going to feign indignation over him being unable to play the money grab at the end of the year, even though I don’t agree with it. The problem with this system lies in the fact that all of Koepka’s results for the 2013-2014 season count for exactly nothing when it comes to Presidents Cup qualifying.
I'll disagree with him on the relative importance of the FedEx Cup vs. the Prez Cup, as the former is sold to us as the logical and defining moment of the Tour's season. I'm not implying that I buy it, just that you can't have it both ways (plus the latter could and might well be remedied by a Captain's pick).
Playing on sponsor exemptions this summer, he began the week with 99 non-members
points and basically needed to make the cut in Greensboro to continue his season. (The equivalent of a T-66 finish would have been enough.) After an opening 71 in easy conditions, he was 4 under for his second round and safely inside the cut line when he lined up his second shot on the ninth hole, his 18th of the day. He caught a flier from the first cut, his ball sailed over the green, and he had no shot to get the ball close. The bogey capped a Friday 67 and put him on the cut line at 2 under.
Schniederjans looked safe for the weekend – and for a spot in the Finals – until Roberto Castro, another Georgia Tech alum, stuffed his final approach to a foot in the last group of the day. That single-handedly moved the cut back to 3 under, and Schniederjans was out.
But there’s more: Erik Compton withdrew prior to the start of the third round, citing a sore left ankle. Had he withdrawn before the end of the second round, the 36-hole cut would have moved back to 2 under and allowed 19 players – including Schniederjans – to move on.
“I was devastated,” he said. “I was crushed.”
Now, instead of a shot to earn his PGA Tour card through the four-event series, he has three weeks off and no status on any major tour.
Now I'm nowhere near as outraged by Ollie's bad luck as the prior two examples, as somebody is inevitably going to end up in the unenviable 126th spot on any points or money list. On the other hand, a system that has Ken Duke and Vijay Singh qualifying but the three listed above not eligible we can safely consider flawed.
Here's Shack's rant from a post in which the title references the Tour eating its young:
It is not Finchem's fault that Ollie had bad luck or that Patrick didn't win the Wells Fargo instead of finishing second.
No, it's Finchem's fault that he could not envision so many negatives than positives from the move to wraparound golf or the consequences of ending Q-School as a direct avenue to thePGA Tour. And it's certainly his fault if more college golfers start following Spieth's bold plan of leaving school in December instead of June after the season and graduations have played out.
(This state of affairs is especially worth remembering when the tour tries to align itself with NCAA golf, even as it tries to send well-developed collegians to their feeder tours whether they need the developmental golf or not.)
The incongruity of the current schedule was largely created in the name of growing purses and keeping the playoffs on network television at the expense of common sense on many fronts. This unfortunate change will be the legacy of Finchem's term, especially if he stays on past 2016 to protect his vision of a playoff structure that remains as he envisioned: bloated, ill-timed as a sports event on the heals of majors and oddly discriminatory toward budding stars who--how dare they--choose to finish out the school year.
Which is why it is imperative that 68-year-old Finchem retire in 2016 and pave the way for his hand-chosen successor to imagine a better way, particularly at a time when the game desperately wants to nurture its young, not hold them back.
Geoff, you have a little something coming out of the corner of your mouth...no, other side.
The FedEx Cup is the symptom because it's when all of the various decisions that have been made conspire to demonstrate that the net effect is to render the PGA Tour an increasingly closed shop. The elimination of Tour Q-School has imposed a minimum obligation of a year's indentured servitude on young players, and I need to emphasize that the most important word is "minimum," Players such as Brooks Koepka, Peter Uhlein and Jordan Spieth have tried to circumnavigate these policies, by delaying the rise of young talent we end up with an inferior product.
I think the Jordan Spieth example is somewhat misinterpreted, as while he made it through the gauntlet, it's easy to forget the rub of the green involved. If a bunker shot on the 18th hole at the John Deere, a shot that Spieth admits was caught thin and was moving at speed, does not hit the pin and drop, Spieth would likely not have been in the 2014 Masters field. From there it's possible to conclude that he might have still been toiling overseas or on the Web.com tour, and his epic 2015 season might not have occurred.
A great trip, so some final thoughts before resuming regularly scheduled programming.
Head of Craig - On Sunday, our last full day in country, we played the Craighead, Crail Golfing Society's second course, though in our opinion second only chronologically. The course was designed in the late 1990's by Gil Hanse before he was, you know, Gil Hanse,
It will be considered blasphemous in certain circles, but I liked it as much as it's older sibling. As with Gil's design at castle Stuart, it features wide playing corridors, not a bad thing since we played it in some of the strongest wind we had on the trip. Gil was given an equally beautiful canvas with which to work, and one can't but envy the club members having two such interesting tracks with which to amuse themselves.
The day started with a misfire on my part, as we needlessly rushed to make a tee time that turned out
Graeme Lennie
to be 40 minutes later than I thought. That worked out fine, however, as it gave me time for a good long chat with Crail's longtime head professional, Graeme Lennie. You may recall that Theresa had Graeme's son as her caddie on the Balcomie, and Graeme is coming stateside for a golf trip with his buddy Gil Hanse. I did kindly offer that if they were desperate to fill out their fourball at Pine Valley, I'd see if I could fit it in. But Graeme knows everybody in the game and our discussion covered the recently-deceased Jim Finnegan, as well as favorites George Pepper, Mike Bamberger and John Garrity.
The other act of provenance was that our caddies were both named Jim. I did some quick math and calculated that, given our deteriorating mental acuity, that gave us a 50% chance of remembering at least one of their names.... But they were both delightful company, not that there's anything newsworthy in that. And they both took to our match and associated trash talking with gusto...
The course has a heathland feel and look to it in spots:
And some trees ring a section of the property:
But in other spots it's oozing with linksy goodness:
The most unusual feature was on the 11th hole, where this sign greet you on the tee:
There was an old stone wall there bisecting the fairway, and Gil just left it there. It's only 3 1/2-4 foot high, but one does need to control one's distance to leave room to clear it.
Theresa played quite well, even taunting me by balancing her golf ball on her cap:
Theresa made a clutch up-and-in on the Par-3 17th to close me out 2&1, bringing the final tally of the trip to 5-3. She really found her form late in the trip, so it's fortunate that I built up a lead in the early days.
Sign O' The Times - If you were with me during my Ballyliffin blogging days, you might remember this post on signs that amused or intrigued me. This trip was not particularly fertile ground in that area, as this was pretty much the best I saw (in both cases the actual images are from Google searches), the first from South Uist:
We crossed this bridge somewhere in the mid-section of the country.
I know, it used to be a respectable family blog, but now we're just going for click-bait.
The Good - The actual travel arrangements worked like a charm, and thank goodness for that. John had been quite concerned about the luggage situation on our puddle-jumper from Glasgow to Benbecula, as he's seen some ugly situations with passengers either not allowed to take their bags on or charged an exorbitant fee for doing so, in one case even for carry-ons. As I told my buddies before leaving, as long as all they want is my money I'll be happy... one of my favorite moments was when the Flybe gate agent told me with a crestfallen look on her face that she was sorry but would have to charge me ten quid for my second bag...well, if you have to. They'll never know how much money they left on the table...
The Very Good - The weather cooperated almost fully. Yes, we got pretty wet that first day at Askernish, but that was the only time we played in the rain. Most days the rain gear remained safely in the boot, and I played two rounds in shorts (and could have played others). We saw some hard and persistent rain, but fortunately that was only on our two travel days. We had what the bride has taken to calling "Scott Simpson weather."
The Better - In a word, Crail. Both the village and golf club were everything I contemplated in planning the trip, and being only ten miles from St. Andrews was just perfect. Those evening strolls to the harbor will stay with us for some time, and the village has Theresa second-guessing our long-term plan to spend a full season in Ballyliffin. We might have to try both...
The Best - Sharing the first half of our trip with the wonderful Elsie and John. And it would be thus even absent banoffee pie... They're just great friends with a sense of fun and adventure and sharing the Askernish journey with them was perfect.
It all came about without conscious effort from my end, but the result is that we visited a place renown for it's remoteness, and we got there with amazing ease. We're just damned lucky in that, so thank you to our friends.
The Mildly Disappointing - Because it's been such a wet summer in Scotland, the course were universally softer than ideal. I do like my links on the fiery side, but that's just the rub of the green.
The Bad - Not much to speak of, perhaps only an unfortunate lodging decision in Aberdeenshire, and even that might have been worth it for the brilliant morning and evening walks to the North Sea.
The Worst - Not much, though this was probably our worst trip as relates to dining. Despite it's reputation, we've always eaten quite well on our trips, especially enjoying the fresh seafood. I don't think this means much of anything, we just didn't find good options North of Aberdeen and our first night in Crail at the hotel across the street we did experience one pretty bad display of the culinary arts.
It should also be noted that after three nights of Elsie's home cooking, any food was going to be a disappointment.
Book Review - I often tie my reading to topical events, and I had been saving Kevin Cook's highly-
regarded Tommy's Honor for my Askernish pilgrimage. It's the detailed and wonderfully written account of the lives of Old and Young Tom Morris, and I can't recommend it to you strongly enough.
Now it didn't play out exactly as planned, as my blogging was so time-consuming that I didn't do much reading while there, and I would have been better served by having finished it before getting to St. Andrews. Instead I finished it on the flight home, teary-eyed as the various tragedies consume Old Tom. But if you've even a cursory interest in the history of our game, I think you'll enjoy it greatly. It's wonderfully evocative of a bygone time, but it's filled with larger-than-life characters and great vignettes. Give it a try, you'll thank me.
NOTE: This post was started at the Glasgow airport hotel and finished after arriving home.
Saturday remained an open day on the calendar until, well....Saturday. The day after weather forecast was ranging from dire to iffy, so no need to commit big dollars. But Saturday dawned promisingly, and playahs gonna play, so Employee No. 2 baited me by noting it was a shame that we didn't have room under the budget for Kingsbarns. As if...
Funny Business Model - You'd think that if you're filling open spaces on the tee sheet at the very last moment and, a great seizer of opportunity I am, paying full retail, they'd at least make it easy. But no, on a Saturday at the height of their season, Kingsbarns doesn't see a need to answer their telephone. They encourage a soul to leave a message that will be promptly returned. Promptly? That's the worst pronunciation of "Never" I've yet heard.
And yet they got my money....but it was a gorgeous day and it's quite the overpriced charmer of a links. It was old buddy Mark Parsinen's first project in Scotland and He chose Kyle Phillips to design the course, which opened in 2000. The bride and I played it shortly after it opened in 2001, and it's eye candy from start to finish.
An Interlude - We made a day of it in Kingsbarns, visiting the Cambo House grounds and Walled Garden. After Parking, somebody made a new friend:
A fun looking wedding was taking shape, and as we left later we saw the bagpipers marching across the field. Strangely enough, we walked down to the water and found ourselves on the 15th tee...the far end of their property. Pretty little spot, that....
Early Wows - The property just has a special feel to it...heck, even the putting green seduces you:
I threw another opening hole birdie at the girl, and she came back with a tasty up-and-in from that front-right bunker on the Par-3 second, pictured below.
The golf was sick, I shot 39 with a silly double and she posted 44, despite making a bit of a mess of the ninth to open the door for me to halve the nine. I beat her by five, I give her five a nine, it all seems so....I don't know, even.
No caddies could be rustled up, so we're out there pushing our trolleys.
I should also add that we had great company for the day, Daphne and Art who live in the Phoenix area. Art has a scorching low ball flight that screams Scotland at you and Daphen leads you to believe she's a newbie, then pounds it.
I Picked The Wrong Week To Quit Smoking - Art and I had good fun on the 301-yard Par-4 6th, flying the two target bunkers with wildly differing shots:
Art of course drilled his low and I teed it high and watched it fly, and this was the result:
His is the closer ball (assuming you can make them out) thanks to that lower ball flight, but in a normal year (i.e., without such soft conditions) I'm guessing he'd be off the back of the green and I'd be pin high and ten feet for eagle. That's my story and I'm sticking to it....
Good Shots - In both senses, as Theresa caught this punched 7-iron on the Par-3 eighth.
The shots I remember most from these trips are the linksy shots, where you match the club and trajectory well, and that one qualifies.
Daphne and Art compared the Par-5 12th to the finisher at Pebble, wrapping left-to-right around the water. I actually thought it far more interesting, with a fairly difficult second (even harder if you fade the ball) and far more to catch your eye on the third. See if you agree:
The approach has bunkers left and right, and a multi-tiered green as well.
This is the best photo I got of it, but angle is more severe making the second quite a test.
We all played their signature hole, the Par-3 fifteenth well, including this by herself:
Hard to see why it's the signature hole:
The Results - The trip-long competition had been closed out on The Old Course on Thursday, but my Tessie was looking for redemption. This was without doubt the best the two of us played collectively, as the bride shot an 89 and I finished with a 79. As noted above I give her ten, and it seems those chaps in Far Hills know something about mathematical algorithms, since the match was halved.
Bumping Into Old Friends - A fun and amusing coda to our day at Kingsbarns... when we played the 15th hole, there was a woman sitting on a bench with her border collie, just enjoying the warm day and watching the golfers pass through. We exchanged some pleasantries and, after ensuring the she liked strangers, we found out that the collie's name was Meg and that she's not especially picky, pretty much anyone with hands can rub her belly.
As an aside, it's quite typical for there to be public access near a links, to wit our morning visit to the fifteenth tee and that unidentified gent in the photo of Theresa above.
Meg and Scott: Scott's the tall one.
In any event, on our way home from our nightly walk to the harbor, we ran into that same woman and the delightful Meg, who seemed particularly happy to see us again. Or anyone...We had a delightful chat and it made us feel like Crail locals. We'll be back, Meg!
After the stinging disappointment on The Old Course, the bride petitioned for and was granted a one-day reprieve from golf prison. She used her time to enjoy the coastal walk here in the East Neuk of Fife, while I took the car and headed southwest to Lundin Golf Club located in the town of Lundin Links. I know, those seem reversed or something....
Lundin (pronounced like the city) is a James Braid design, but as always there is a story. The adjoining towns of Lundin and Leven (pronounced LEE-ven) shared their links from the 1860's until 1907, when there was simply too much demand for one course to suffice. Each town took nine holes and built new nines to create a full 18.
The drive down was quite delightful, through picturesque towns such as Elie and St. Monans. I got lost a couple of times en route, though as long as the Firth of Forth was to my left I couldn't be too very lost. And we even found a red phonebooth and some bales of hay. The day was a success already...
What A Difference A Day Makes - Any cockiness I might have retained from successfully avoiding all 110 Old Course bunkers was dissipated on the very first hole, when a well-struck hybrid failed to release forward as required by statute, and without so much as a flash of its blinkers dove right into a bunker some 15 yards short of the green. Oh well, it's not like anyone is watching....
The opening holes are quite the lover stretch, playing along the Firth:
Burn Baby Burn - On thr short Par-4 sixth I let the big dog hunt, only to find my ball in a wee burn fronting the green. Memo to self: When the hole is actually named "Burn", a moment to ascertain the source of that name might be worth one's time.
The fifth green was nestled in a lovely spot.
Is This Lundin or The Strath? - The inland terrain wasn't quite as interesting, but the uphill Par-3 11th seems to be more akin to Elsie's home track than a links:
Because....Golf - I found the events that ensued on the Par-5 thirteenth quite amusing, though your mileage might vary. I pushed my drive to the right dangerously close to OB stakes, and so hit a privvie. That one I of course striped down the middle. I found the tee ball and punched a seven-iron down the fairway, but too far (or at least too far left), in this position:
This isn't a shot one sees often (or ever) in linksville, but that flag can be made out through the strand of trees. It's not true that links are necessarily completely treeless, but trying to lift a wedge over a grove of trees is a first.
I should note that having reached my second ball and glancing at the yardage, I could resist giving it a go and trying to draw it around those same trees. What the heck, no one was watching... That shot was a tad overcooked and actually bounced through the trees.
My actual third with a 52* wedge (the photo makes it look that I'm further away, I was only +/- 95 yards from the front of the green), scraped the very top branch and settled 20 yards short of the green on hardpan, leaving an impossible pitch over a bunker, which I proceeded to dump in said bunker.
So I dropped a third in the same spot, of course pinched it perfectly and stiffed it....before stepping in the bunker I chipped my provisional ball, also stiff of course because....golf. Then proceeded to leave my fourth on my actual ball in the bunker. At this point in my mind I'd made a four and a five, yet was still in a bunker lying five. Because...wait for it, golf.
Isn't That My Call? - Lundin's 14th hole is a downhill Par-3 back towards the water, and they've given it quite the modest name.
It was playing about 175 yards back into the wind and I punched a tasty little 5-iron to the back fringe. The putt was in the hole from the get-go, and it seemed a shame that no one was, you know, watching my demonstration of links shotmaking. Perhaps "perfection" is the word for which I was searching....
Tree, Forest - No. 17 is another of their short Par-4, featuring a blind tee-shot over some dunes. There is a burn involved, but I hit a solid drive and found my ball only about 65-70 yards from the pin.
I punched a relatively low 58* wedge on a line just left of the pin, that bit and moved right with the spin until disappearing from view. I yelled, but the group ahead was well on their way and absolutely no one paid it any mind....I was at this point kinda pissed about the no one seeing it thing.
The 17th green from behind after my ball was removed.
Lundin is the kind of links that not too many visitors will seek out, but it's very much of its environment. We love playing the courses of the Open rota and the better known links, but there's much pleasure to be derived from a day on Lundin Links with a trolley and a Strokesaver as well.
