Thursday Threads

Employee No. 2 and I are off to Hudson National in a bit, so without further delay...

A Feminist Manifesto - The great Jaime Diaz dares to go where no man treads, with this rather curious place-setter for the Solheim Cup:

This might not go over well, especially on the eve of the Solheim Cup in Germany. But American women’s golf is missing something. 

There is plenty of greatness on the LPGA. Lydia Ko of New Zealand is already a historic player, and current No. 1 Inbee Park of South Korea has seven majors. Last month in Portland, then 17-year-old Brooke Henderson of Canada won an event by eight shots.

Might?  OK, let's let him finish his thought:

A steady decline in domination by U.S. women began in the mid-1990s with the rise of

Annika Sorenstam and Karrie Webb and the influx of more international players. But in the last few years, spurred by an energized LPGA schedule and more aggressive marketing, there was hope that Lewis, Wie and Thompson would not only stem the tide, but put America back on top. 

It hasn’t happened. If anything, more ground has been lost, primarily to the South Korean juggernaut. With an efficiently tiered system of multiple professional tours, and instruction that churns out wonderful golf swings, the small country produces players that are skilled, driven, poised and ready. 

Among U.S. players -- perhaps in self-defense -- there’s an increasing drift toward style over substance. Instagram accounts, good looks and general buzz seem as important as performance, if not more so. 

Media outlets -- including Golf Digest -- have played an important part in encouraging the trend. It’s understandable. More than their predecessors, American female golfers can make real money in endorsements.

The U.S. pattern of becoming a star without commensurate results breeds entitlement and competitive softness. Inevitably, Americans women are getting outplayed by golfers who have placed substance over style, and simply want it more.

I'm actually not going to agree with Jaime, so you might want to mark your calendars...but I was hoping that he'd name names, so let's see how that goes:

That might sound harsh, especially when applied to Lewis, who has an old-school ethos. She would have been right at home playing next to the American Hall of Famers of the late 1980s and early '90s, a group that included current U.S. Solhein captain Juli Inkster. Lewis achieved No. 1 in the world in 2013 and has 11 career wins.

Again with the "might"...  but seriously, folks, is there a player less glam than Stacey?  No doubt she's had a disappointing season evidencing a frustrating inability to close, but I'd be hard-pressed to blame that on spending too much time on her nails.

He ticks off logical names but it's all rather unconvincing....Maybe Lexi has under-performed, but did anyone ever think she was a good putter (and isn't it a tad early to be writing her obit?)?  Christie Kerr is an over-achiever in my book, and Pressel and Creamer seem obviously to never have been all that good.

But then he gets to the crux of the matter, the lightning rod for all that is wrong with U.S. women's golf:

Most embodying the current era of American golf is Wie. She is often described as the

LPGA’s biggest needle mover. But as a player, she remains flawed. She’s lost distance off the tee yet remained alarmingly crooked, and she has never been a good putter. Her 2014 U.S. Open victory was both inspiring and redemptive, but it might have been a false indicator. 

Yes, Wie’s been beset with nagging injuries. But close observers wonder: Does the former prodigy have the desire?

I don't have a problem with the inevitable criticism she draws, but I find it a real stretch to draw wider conclusions from it.  She was the ultimate one-off from when she burst onto the scene as a 14-year old, possessed of other-worldly skills but fragile and flawed all the same.  And like Lexi (and many big-hitters of both genders), her putter and short-game were always suspect.

Shack has his own defense of the gals with which I mostly agree.  I find it really hard to criticize the ladies for seeking glamour as that's what young ladies do and it's also what the market demands....

 This is getting a lot of play for obvious reasons:

After a decorated Solheim Cup career as a player, Juli Inkster has already made her mark on this year's event as a captain. And the matches haven't even started. 

On Wednesday, Inkster made it clear that her tenure reign as U.S. captaindictator is going to be different. She's ruling with an iron fist, which leaves no room for a different material we've grown used to seeing from the Americans: paint.

The face paint ultimately made the gals look foolish when they played so poorly....  But even Freud had to acknowledge that sometimes a banana is just a banana...sometimes the players just aren't very good.  

And lest you think that all glam has been banished, Paula will still have ribbon in her hair and Wiesy will be sporting these kickers:

Hey, Juli didn't say anything about shoes or hashtags...

Rio Loco, Vol. CCCXXXI - They're going to have that long-awaited test match on the Rio golf course....sorta kinda:

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) - A top official of the International Golf Federation said Wednesday that the new course for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro will get its first test in March with a one-day exhibition event featuring three or four of the top male and female players. 

Players have not yet been selected.

So we're down to two fourballs, eh?  And good luck getting top players to South America in March when they're in the glide path to Augusta and Mission Hills.

David Feherty could not be reached for comment, as his agent indicated that he was too busy studying the curling rulebook.

Stats, The Funny Side - The increased availability of stats on Tour is no doubt a great thing, but that's no reason not to look for the amusing underbelly as well...for instance, I'm far less interested in who has the most drives over 320 yards (Bubba, of course) than this:

Freddie Jacobson has the highest percentage of drives of less than 240 yards (11 %).

Or that they give out a Marylan on Tour:

No one drives it closer to the center of the fairway (21'8") on average than Jamie Donaldson.

For non-Willow Ridge readers, the Marilyn is the closest-to-the-line award in our mixed events named for the ever-lovely and adorable Marilyn Cohen.  

And I'll leave you on your own with this list of the forty--four funniest moments in golf...the movie and TV items have some merit, but how do you top this one for awkward?

NO. 40

When Seve Ballesteros won his second Masters, in 1983, seemingly sage then-Augusta National chairman Hord Hardin was charged with asking the first question in the Butler Cabin: "Seve, let me ask you, a lot of people have asked me... How tall are you?" There are bad questions that sometimes get good answers, and bad questions that live on simply for their epic badness.

But it's hard to top this for over-analyzed pretentiousness:

 NO. 7 

Few golf moments have as many sound-comedy ingredients as Lee Trevino (below) tossing a rubber snake to Jack Nicklaus on the first tee of the 1971 U.S. Open playoff. It starts with the showmanship of Trevino--a jaunty, irrepressible outsider with an intuitive gift for funny. It builds with the clash of an irreverent "low" act against the idealized "high" totems of a dignified sport: the tense stillness before a playoff for a major, the grim presence of the ultimate champion in Nicklaus, the hallowed ground of Merion, the prim USGA officials. Finally, it closes with the validating kicker: Trevino wins.

Or, you could have noted that Jack, he of the "grim presence", had a good laugh with his fellow competitor and then they got on with their game.  Oh and the photo included, this one:

Ummm...you might have mentioned that it was staged later.  "cause Lee didn't wear a pithe helmet to the first tee, it being "hallowed ground" and all, and that ax would have been deemed a fifteenth club.  Sheesh!