This is one of the more challenging blogging assignments, trying to capture the essence of an amazingly exciting event that happened in a remote galaxy unknown to mankind. I saw virtually all of the coverage over the four days, but that entailed extreme time-shifting and risking the going concern nature of my marriage.
On the positive side, those of you that Tivo sports events know that the biggest challenge is often getting to the man cave without having obtained knowledge of the outcome. There's a need in my fellow man, not an attractive trait I must note, to assert their superiority by sharing knowledge of certain results with those less fortunate, even when those dregs of society have affirmatively expressed their strong desire to remain unenlightened....However, in the present instance, there was little risk involved. Simply put, nobody saw nothing....
Doug Ferguson's account of the seesaw battle is, to coin a phrase, better than most:
INCHEON, SOUTH KOREA — The final hour when both teams thought they had it won. The clutch putt that turned a rookie into the hero. The stubbed chip that made the local star cover his face with both hands as if he wanted to hide.
The Presidents Cup, packed with raw emotion and endless nerves, was unlike any other over the last 10 years.
Except for the outcome.
The whole singles session was riveting, as the Americans got out to a seeming early lead, though said leads were usually of the one-up variety and held by golfers in whom confidence was yet to be earned. But, as Doug notes, the nerves were quite raw, quite a thing for an exhibition, and when the best golfers on the planet gag, there's usually a reason....
Back to Fergie:
The Americans won for the sixth straight time Sunday when Chris Kirk made a 15-foot birdie putt to win his match in a stunning turnaround on the final hole, and Bill Haas provided a storybook ending with the winning point for his team and for his father.
"A moment I'll never forget," U.S. captain Jay Haas said, so choked up when it ended that he couldn't speak.
Guys went from heroic shotmaking to throwing up all over their FootJoys, as per this:
Anirban Lahiri, the first player from India to make the International team, battled Kirk shot-for-shot over the final hour holes and looked like a winner when he played a delicate pitch to perfection on the par-5 18th and had 4 feet for birdie. Kirk's chip ran 15 feet by. Based on the status of other matches still on the course, it looked like the International team would finally emerge a winner.
And then Kirk made his putt on the final turn, and one of the most stoic players on the PGA Tour unleashed a fist pump.
Moments later, Lahiri missed.
His putt caught the right edge of the cup and spun out, and he dropped his putter over his back in disbelief."I have to give credit to Chris for making that putt," Lahiri said. "These things are scripted, I guess, and I wasn't in the script this time."
I've long been amused at the distances of putts that golf announcers throw out, but that Lahiri putt looked closer to two than four to my eye... As for local hero Sangmoon Bae, he played magnificently down the stretch, and I certainly liked his chances against Haas the Younger:
Neither was Bae, the only player under the Korean flag who was playing for the finaltime before he starts mandatory military service. When it became evident the Presidents Cup would be decided by his match with Haas, the American was 1 up and not giving away any shots. Bae holed a 10-foot putt on the 16th to halve the hole. He came within inches of holing a bunker shot on the 17th to halve the hole, which assured the Americans would do no worse than tie.
Facing that tough chip below the 18th green, Bae hit it heavy and the gallery groaned as it rolled back to his feet. He crouched over that covered his face as his caddie, Matt Minister, placed a hand on Bae's shoulder to console him. Bae chipped about 12 feet by the hole, and when Haas blasted out of a bunker to 8 feet, Bae conceded the putt.
"I wanted to make the winning point for the team, but at the end of the day, our team lost," Bae said. "So I was very sad and disappointed about it."
To clarify, by the time that final match got to the 18th, Bae would have had to win the hole to halve his match as well as the team match, and it was a delicate chip to say the least.
But even those excerpts don't adequately convey the drama that was the 18th hole. An inordinate number of matches came to the 18th hole, and with the exception of Louis Oosthuizen's eagle to win his match against Patrick Reed, there was far more gagging than heroics to be seen. And the worst of the culprits were the redneck duo of J.B. and Bubba, the latter who missed a teensy-weensy putt for a win on the 18th for the second consecutive match.
So, let's get reflective, shall we? First, the Tour Confidential gang deals with the credibility of the event question:
Michael Bamberger: Oh, for sure, and playing for fewer points made the difference, in addition to the Americans playing such a long-haul road game. I am way more interested in the the event than I used to be in part because there now seems to be a measure of antipathy that had not been there.
Antipathy? I'd like someone to follow up on that with Mike, but I'd have gone with intensity. These guys were choking up a storm, and that means that they cared.... what more do we need?
Here's another take:
Mark Godich: It was great theater, no doubt about it. I'd go so far as to say it even had a Ryder Cup feel to it. And I can't help but think that the intensity of the matches will serve the Americans well next year at Hazeltine.
Now that's an interesting question, isn't it? I think, as Shack noted here, that a guy like Chris Kirk will be helped, but Chris Kirk's presence on next year's Ryder Cup team is not exactly a foregone conclusion. And there are perhaps a few others, but the image of Bubba and J.B. playinfgthe 18th hole will not recede quickly....
When asked to nominate an MVP for the event, Branden Grace won in a walkover...And appropriately so, as he was an assassin out there. Alas, they didn't ask the obvious follow-up for an LVP... on the Int'l. side it was no doubt Jason Day, as if you were told before the event that the hottest player on the planet wouldn't win a match, you'd have expected a rout...
But on the American side, my top tow LVP's are as follows:
- Rickie Fowler - He started the week with 27 holes in which he made everything....followed by a listless series of dreadful performances culminating in a no-show Sunday. Let's not forget his equally strange no-show against Rory in Ryder Cup singles, all from a player regarded as a great gamer. But this is a gut that will be on the Hazeltine roster, but whether he'll show up or not is speculative...
- Jimmy Walker - His best shot of the last month was his photo of the blood moon, and he simply looked lost out there.
- Kooch - He was there, wasn't he? But he was quite the non-factor...
- DJ - Apparently it's not just chicks that dig the long ball, as Mr. perfect got drawn into the polar vortex that is DJ-world. DJ was given the first three holes in his singles match with Danny Lee, and barely eked out a win. And Danny Lee had quite the disastrous week...
That's four guys that are close to locks for 2016 that didn't show....
And I'd add this list of problem children:
- Jordan Spieth - Yes he lit it in the fourball with Patrick Reed, but was he on the premises on Sunday?
- Bubba - See 18th green comments above. The intensity of these team matches isn't a good fit for Bubba's itchy-scratchy nature...
- J.B. Holmes - See Watson, Bubba...
My concern is that what looks like the core of next year's Ryder Cup team emerged from this week with reputation diminished. And those that over-delivered, Kirk and Bill Haas, say, might not even make the team next year. In fact, about the only team stalwart that enhanced his reputation was Zach Johnson...
And how can we not discuss Phil, about whom Joe Passov had this:
PASSOV: All credit to (Hawaii) 5-0 Branden Grace, but Man of the Match goes to Phil Mickelson. Not only did the questionable captain's pick post a 3-0-1 record, but he also hit the majority of the week's most memorable shots. Beyond that, however, loomed a larger intangible. I thought the U.S. might come to Korea uninspired, after a long season and being a heavy favorite to win, but the emotion that Lefty displayed regarding the mere honor of being picked to play for his country spread to the rest of the team. That might have been the margin of victory.
OK, let me acknowledge that Phil played much better than his recent form would lead one to expect, though I don't think he played as well as his 3-0-1 record indicated. If I remember the comment correctly, at about the turn Phil was 2-3 up on Schwartzel without having made a birdie... that's just dumb luck.
He similarly befitted in earlier matches from weak opponents, most notably Adam Scott and Jason Day. As for the holed bunker shots, he's done that so often that it might seem churlish to write that off to luck as well....
But no doubt he's luckier even than Suzann Pettersen in that the match outcome took him off the hook for his boneheaded use of the wrong ball and associated failure to know the rules of the competition. I can't imagine how this didn't come up in practice rounds, but the image of Phil asking Captain Haas whether the one-ball rule was in effect AFTER hitting his drive will be my enduring memory of Phil from this week.
I'll have more later, but for now I've got places to go and people to see.
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