Mid-Week Musings

Bear with me as I multi-process, blogging with the taped Long-Drive competition playing as mood music...

The Vagaries of Match-Play, Long-Drive Edition - It didn't take long for those vagaries to appear, as top seed Joe Miller was beaten in the first match televised by a guy with a modified Happy Gilmore action.  The move to match play for this event was shear genius, and I think I'm becoming a fan of the time clock.

Shack previewed the event in his Forward Press column, but of greater interest to me was this little nugget from his blog:

In this week's Forward Press looking at golf for October 20-25, I explore some of the dreams going forward with this event when Golf Channel takes over for founder Art Sellinger, but spare you my view that Long Drive would make a better Olympic sport than stroke play golf.

What he said!  Long Drive would be a brilliant Olympic sport.  So good that it will never happen...

And I'm saddened to report that the perfectly-named Justin Moose did not survive his quarter-final match.

This Week in Schadenfreude - Fire up the Wabac Machine (did any of you get that reference), as we're going to take you back to a far more innocent era, July 2015.  Your humble blogger was incredulous (though any number of adjectives might have been appropriate) that the kid going for the Grand Slam chose to arrive in St.Andrews on Monday afternoon of Open Week.

I know, we're slow to move on from our perceived grievances, but see what you think of this story:

Organizers say PGA Tour Player of the Year Jordan Spieth will headline the Singapore

Open in January when the tournament returns after a three-year absence. 

Spieth, who won this year's Masters and U.S. Open, will be looking to join a list of big-name Singapore Open winners, including three-time title holder Adam Scott, Ian Poulter, Angel Cabrera and defending champion Matteo Manassero. 

Spieth, 22, will play in Singapore for the first time. "I know the SMBC Singapore Open is one of Asia's leading events and I couldn't be more excited to add it to my 2016 playing schedule," he said in a statement.

Which is the more laugh-out-loud funny, calling the young Italian the defender for an event he won during the Carter Administration or Jordan calling this one of Asia's leading events.  So leading an event that they didn't even bother to play it....

The tourney has a total purse of $1 million, so you know there's an appearance fee that rivals the GNP of a small country involved... not that there's anything wrong with that.  So, why have I set my phaser to Rant mode?

Because the event that he's so excited about is opposite the Farmers Insurance at Torrey Pines, where a very young Jordan made his professional debut in 2013.  And he of course did that on a sponsor's exemption....

So, as I understand the state of contemporary morality, skipping an event that has previously supported you (the John Deere) to chase golf history is bad.  Skipping an event that similarly supported you) to chase a gargantuan appearance fee (Torrey) is OK. 

I have very little problem with players chasing the big money, as they're independent contractors.  But I detected a bit of sanctimony in Jordan's presentation back in the summer, and I certainly hope he grows out of that.

I Didn't Even Get a Card - Jonathan Wall celebrates an important birthday:

Just ask Billy Andrade. 

Fifteen years ago, Andrade arrived in Las Vegas for the then-Invensys Classic (now the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open) with just $187,027 in winnings. That left him 159th on the season-long money list, well off the pace needed to keep his playing privileges for the next season. 

During one of the practice rounds that week, Andrade was approached by Fred Couples, who asked how his year was going. 

"I told him I was playing so bad that I had already mailed in my check for [PGA TOUR Qualifying School],” Andrade recalled in a recent interview with PGATOUR.COM. “It had gotten to the point that I was already looking ahead. I had no idea my luck would change in one week." 

In the days leading up to the first round, Andrade had the opportunity to test a new golf

ball in a nondescript white box. The ball, known as the "Pro V1," was unlike anything Titleist had ever introduced in the past — a solid core (taken from the distance balls), surrounded by a surlyn casing (taken from the performance balls), with a 392-dimple icosahedral design urethane cover that gave the ball a veneer look and provided more spin. 

It didn't take Andrade long to notice a significant uptick in distance off the tee with the Pro V1, close to 20 yards when compared to Titleist’s Tour Prestige ball, which he had been playing for most of the 2000 season.

To coin a phrase, that was really the ball that changed the ball.  And confined hundreds of classic course designs to the dustbin of history...

And if I remember correctly, when a young Tiger Woods beat Davis Love in a playoff for his first tour victory, he was using the new ammo whereas Davis hadn't yet made the switch.

Dunluce Dreams - Are becoming a reality, presumably my first Mamas and Papas reference on this blog.  But pencil in July 2019, because we're going to Royal Portrush:

Darren Clarke confessed that never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined the Open Championship retuming to Northern Ireland during the “dark days” of the Troubles. 

But with the R&A announcing at Royal Portrush yesterday that the 148th Open will be played over a redesigned Dunluce links from 18-21 July 2019, the 2011 Open champion believes the “biggest and best tournament in the world” will be played on a course that will soon be considered one of the Top 5 on the planet. 

While it’s been known since July last year that The Open was coming back to Portrush for the first time since 1951, Clarke hailed official confirmation of the 2019 date as “absolutely huge for Northern Ireland and, indeed, Ireland as a whole.”

I'm happy about this for all the right reasons, for the pople of Portrush and the entire North, only fleetingly covered in the linked Brian Keough piece:

The changes to the course are huge but it's the reality that Northern Ireland will host an Open just days after Marching Season and only a few years after the bloody sectarian conflict that left 3,500 dead that left the Dungannon native pinching himself. 

Clarke said: “I knew it had been here at Royal Portrush before. Did I think we would get through the dark times that Northern Ireland has had to get the biggest and best tournament in the world? I’d be very foolish to say yes.

I'm also happy because it's simply a spectacular links, as proven by the hosting of the 2012 Irish Open.  

Tedious Indeed - Bob Harig updates us on the State of the Tiger:

Tiger Woods has yet to begin rehabilitation from Sept. 16 back surgery that will sideline

him for the rest of this year and said Tuesday that he expects a "long and tedious process'' before he returns to golf sometime in 2016. 

Woods said he played in pain for a good part of 2015, his worst year as a pro and one that saw him miss the cut in the last three major championships while failing to qualify for the FedEx Cup playoffs.

And yet, I seem to remember him telling us that he felt great all year, that he just needed more reps... It's so disillusioning to know that we can't rely on him to tell us how he really feels.

Just let us know when you book a tee time, OK?

Curious Story of the Day -  Are you a fan of the Beemer?  No, not the car company, the former PGA champion...

Ian Poulter has made a last-minute dash from Florida to Hong Kong in order to maintain his European Tour membership and remain eligible for next year's Ryder Cup. 

Poulter dropped out of the world's top 50 on Sunday and was therefore ineligible for the upcoming WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai, meaning he would be unable to play the 13 events required for European Tour membership. 

Only members can qualify for Europe's Ryder Cup team and Poulter has now been forced to travel to Fanling for this week's Hong Kong Open.

Poults got into the field because Rich Beem gave up his sponsor's exemption.... a very generous move on his part.  Thing is, though, if the Poultergeist shows up at Hazeltine as he did at Medinah, beemer's gonna have some 'splainin' to do....

Is that enough content for toady?  I'm afraid it will have to be, as it's going to hit 70 degrees here today.