Weekend Wrap

And a fine weekend it was for golf and sleep, though we do offer our condolences to the Mets fans among our readership (I'm speaking to you, Wally).

Young Guns, Reinforced - I should note at the outset that I watched zero golf this weekend, but this is noteworthy nonetheless:

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) Justin Thomas overcame a double bogey on the 14th 

and some nervous moments on the final hole Sunday to win the CIMB Classic for his first PGA Tour title. 

The 22-year-old American holed a 6-foot par putt on the par-5 18th for a one-stroke victory over Australian star Adam Scott. Thomas shot a 6-under 66 for a tournament-record 26-under 262 total at Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club. 

Thomas, who had a course-record 61 in the second round, seemed to have blown his chances when he hit into the water at 14, but immediately rallied with three consecutive birdies to take the outright lead.

I know, a young gun runs away with a tourney these days, file that under dog bites man.   But which do you find more amazing, the 26-under total or the fact that at age 22 this was his 39th start on Tour?  To, this quote tells us all we need to know about the Class of '11:

“I expected to win a lot sooner than this, honestly,” he said. “I always had high expectations for myself, and I definitely played well enough last year in some events to win.”

I think Tom Lehrer captured this underachiever motif best when he said, "When Mozart wa smy age, he'd been dead for three years already."

We're all current with that Class of '11 scorecard, and Shack captures the reactions on Twitter of good buddies Jordan Spieth and Patrick Rodgers, notable primarily for the time stamps.

This provides a perfect segue for me to address a Jaime Diaz column from earlier in the week, in which he professes to have become a "Youth Movement" convert, attribution for which is as follows:

It’s evolution – from a litany of factors. Bigger and athletes drawn to the sport, following better fitness regimens, who have emulated physical specimens like Tiger, Dustin and Rory. There is more intense early competition, and equipment that can be tuned to minimize persistent flaws, breeding more confidence to swing harder. 

But the biggest reason? Style of play. 

The ultra-competitive landscape in the minor leagues of pro golf demands going low in order to graduate to the next level. Consistent top-25 finishes doesn’t get it, but occasionally getting hot and converting into wins does. 

As a result young players almost uniformly employ a highly-aggressive style built on big-hitting, flag-hunting and bold putting. When such a player is “on”, rounds like Kaufman’s closing 61 at Las Vegas can happen. 

And with an increasing number of such players entered each week, the 10 percent or so who are “hot” make up a bigger number. I’ve come to believe that on his week, a young player who is hot now has the advantage over a steadier but less explosive old guy, even factoring in experience.

This is a point I've been making for years, though I think the linkage to the Class of '11 is a bit weak.  Fields have been getting stronger and deeper for years, and with such depth comes the certainty that a number of those players will have a hot week with the flat stick. 

Now I'm open to the premise that players are competitive at a younger age due to environmental conditions, but that just accelerates an ongoing trend.   Those guys in their thirties, after all, haven't gone away....

As to his underlying premise regarding style of play, that's a fascinating can of worms that Jaime posits but doesn't much support (I know, it's just a blog post, give the guy a break).  Here there are environmental factors at play as well... equipment advances have made the guys longer and straighter, so it makes perfect sense that they'be be firing at more pins...  I'm not exactly sure what the statistical markers on this would be, proximity on approach shots, as a for instance, could be the result of enhanced skill as well as higher risk taking.  Where's Mark Broadie when we need him...

But the non-scientific reaction to this is important as well.... is 2016 going to be a great season for golf fans, or what?

Mystery, Renewed - Because we don't have enough twenty-something golfers to watch, how great is it to have the Most Mysterious Man in Golf back?

An emotional Victor Dubuisson is targeting another Ryder Cup appearance after winning 

the Turkish Airlines Open for the second time in three years, as Rory McIlroy's challenge fizzled out in Antalya. 

Dubuisson broke down in tears on the 18th green after carding a closing 66 to finish 22 under par, one shot ahead of South Africa's Jaco Van Zyl, with Thailand's Kiradech Aphibarnrat a shot further back.

Do check out this European Tour interactive recap of the tourney.   Please don't be put off by the fact that Shack found it "groovy"...  I know, especially given that he's too young to even have survived the sixties.  

There was some actual good news for the struggling Euro Tour:

"It was so hard because there were so many personal reasons why I did not play so much this year," said Dubuisson, who declined to reveal any details. 

"That's why I am so emotional. I played a few events on the PGA Tour at the beginning of the year and I was not feeling good to be far away from my family. I did not play well and I was feeling lonely so decided to come back to Europe. Now, for the next three or four years, I will just stay in Europe 100 per cent."

That's a smart move for Victor, as it's the easiest path to a Ryder Cup slot.  Though the cynic in me has to note that if they can change the qualifications after the fact for the Race to Dubai, they could also so so for the Ryder Cup.

Happy Indeed -  Tour Rabbit John Peterson is my new hero because with one tee shot he's no doubt caused Commissioner Ratched's head to explode....  

Dateline: Kuala Lumpur.  You're in last place by a bunch heading into the final round.... in fact you're such an afterthought that you're starting on the 10th hole.  Now here's where those technical limitations kick in and as a result you'll have to click through to see what he did to start his round.

Now it occurs to me that perhaps our Shack got hold of a bad tab of acid, because ha again channels the sixties in this post about the incident in which he informs us that the shooter of the video from the "grassy knoll" was none other than Jason Dufner.  Given the state of his game, I think reference to The Duf as a "Prominent Co-conspirator" is prima facie evidence of the use of psychotropic substances, but at least Duf will be hearing from the Commish.

Tiger, Diminished - Tiger had himself another in a long line of no-good awful weeks....  the Friday news dump is the last refuge of scoundrels, so it was dispiriting to see him resort to that in informing us of his latest "Successful" back surgery....Given how this is coming together for the guy, he might want to consider a botched back surgery just for a change of pace.

Here's Tiger's take on it:

"It's one of those things that had to be done," he said. "I have an outstanding team of doctors, and I'll be back as soon as I can."

OK, then I stand corrected...who knew he had an outstanding team of doctors?

I was with my friend Glenn yesterday, and his money quote was that he now realizes that Tiger's back problems are worse than his.  I know that won't mean anything to the rest of you, but it's a telling concession...

Bob Harig takes a closer look at the tea leaves and...well, it ain't pretty:

His comments in Mexico some 10 days ago sounded ominous, certainly more doom and gloom than Tiger Woods is accustomed to admitting. His recovery from back surgery was going slowly, he had yet to begin rehab, noted that he played in pain in 2015 and couldn't say when he would return to competitive golf. 

The news Friday that Woods underwent another procedure in Park City, Utah, to alleviate discomfort from the Sept. 16 microdiscectomy bring his words into sharper focus and make it fair to wonder if a lost 2015 season will be followed by another one in 2016 -- or any golf at all.

I'm a simple guy....three back surgeries in eighteen months makes Tiger's entry into the restaurant business seem a more logical move.  

I've been calling Tiger an old golfer for years, and if you find that harsh then scroll through this Brian Wacker listing of injuries.  And Brian for some reason only starts in 2002, whereas Tiger's left knee was first cut into when he was wearing a scarlet "S" on his baseball cap...

Shack remains incredulous about Tiger's loyalty to his doctors, and takes the opportunity to remind us of some still unexplained background:

Now, I understand Tiger is very loyal to his doctors. After all, he had Dr. Leo Spaceman fly down from Canada 14 times and an assistant make another 49 visits for in house platelet rich spinning sessions he could have gotten at any sports medicine clinic. Or in Germany.

Now our tale doesn't end just yet, because the class act that is Stevie Williams magically materializes when his former bestie is at low ebb.  He might argue that his publisher chose the timing, but I'm guessing that the planets would remain in orbit without a tell-all from a baggage handler....

But you'll want what passes for juicy bits, won't you?  Let's start with an epic tale of man's inhumanity to man:

One thing that really pissed me off was how he would flippantly toss a club in the general direction of the bag, expecting me to go over and pick it up. I felt uneasy about bending down to pick up his discarded club – it was like I was his slave.

If I were just the least bit cynical, I might note that Stevie's W-2 contained far more decimal points than the run-of-the-mill slave's.  Then there was this plaintive cry for help:

The other thing that disgusted me was his habit of spitting at the hole if he missed a putt. Tiger listened to what I had to say, the air was cleared and we got on with it – his goal was to be the best player in history and my goal was to keep working as best I could to help make that happen.

Now, according to Feherty, Stevie was an active and willing participant in the flatulence humor that occurred inside the ropes, but the spitting, that was beyond the pale... Noted.

And isn't this a wonderful walk down memory lane:

But the joy of winning dissipated in the strangest fashion. No sooner had Tiger fulfilled his media obligations than he fled to the airport in a chopper, leaving me to head back to the hotel on my own. As I was driving, I got a text from Mark Steinberg which read, 'There is a story coming out tomorrow. Absolutely no truth to it. Don't speak to anybody.'

 No truth at all to it....  That Steiny, he's a real team player.

But, the thing is, did anyone have any sense that Stevie was unhappy?  

Humility, Delayed - Wow, who knew that announcing golf was difficult?  See if you have the same reaction to this Alex Myer's sitdown with Fox's Joe Buck as I:

"Golf is -- golf is nuts," Buck told For The Win. "You would think it’d be the slowest to do, but it's actually the fastest. I mean, I've done college basketball, a horse race, a bunch of different things and they’d blow by but golf has a frenetic pace of bouncing around from shot to shot and green to green and, in essence, acre to acre over this huge plot of land with over 150 players who are their own team." 

Buck went on to explain another huge difference between golf and his main sports, baseball and football. 

"And I’m not doing any of it live, it’s all of monitors. I go from the best seat in the house at Game 3 of the World Series to literally the worst seat with no vantage point when I’m doing a U.S. Open. That’s the weird thing. It’s more of a television show because you’re just piecing information together. If everything went out, I could still do a baseball or football game. If the cameras went out in golf, I’d be sitting there literally not with one clue what’s going on."

Ummm Joe, about that lack of a clue, you can relax because we know.... 

But about that smug superiority leading up to Chambers Bay?  How did that crow sandwich taste?  

 Oh, and let's not lose sight of this:

Joe Buck knows Fox's first attempt at televising the U.S. Open wasn't perfect. He also knows he and the rest of the crew were getting better by Sunday at Chambers Bay. What he doesn't know? If they'll be able to pick up where they finished last year when the 2016 U.S. Open rolls around.

That's Joe warning us that they'll suck just as bad at Oakmont.  But relax, it's only a twelve-year contract...