Dis, Dat And D'Udder

In which we put aside our growing case of FedEx Cup fever and focus on that which matters....

Nine For The 'Tine - The automatic qualifiers are set for the European Ryder Cup team, as per this tweet:

In his header, Shack refers to this team as "Suddenly looking very strong", but that's not my reaction at all.  Perhaps I'm over-interpreting the current form of their top two qualifiers, but there's nothing in that list that overwhelms or intimidates.

Chris Wood would seem to be the type of gift we've seen in prior years, a player that qualifies by virtue of the European points list, but he's actually seventh on the world points list and would have qualified under any system.

As always, the interest now turns to the captain's picks, and here's Shack's take:

On the outside looking in: Russell Knox, Lee Westwood, Soren Kjeldsen, Thomas Pieters, Martin Kaymer, Shane Lowry and Andrew Johnston. 

I would think Knox and Westwood are locks, while the Pieters v. Kaymer decision provides intrigue given Pieters nearly winning last weekend's Czech Masters on the back of finishing fourth in Rio.

Given the rookie-heavy roster, I'd add Victor Dubuisson and Jamie Donaldson to his list of possible picks, both having played well at Gleneagles.  I don't know that I consider either of Geoff's locks to be of the mortal variety, as Knox is deserving but yet another rookie and Westy is a grizzled veteran but not that great at the playing golf thing.

And then there's the tribal pick of Graeme McDowell to consider.... I don't envy Darren having to choose from a somewhat motley crew, though these guys have a way of surprising us, don't they?

If that last automatic qualifier is new to you, he won't be for long as per this item from curmudgeonly James Corrigan:

Matt Fitzpatrick’s reputation as being a boy wonder in a hurry was given further

substance when he became the youngest Englishman to qualify for the Ryder Cup in more than 30 years.

The 21-year-old’s Hazeltine berth was confirmed when he finished fifth and Thomas Pieters failed to win the Czech Masters on Sunday. And in the immediate aftermath Thomas Bjorn, Darren Clarke’s assistant captain, tipped Fitzpatrick to emerge as “one of the greatest Ryder Cup players Europe has ever produced”.

The kid is good, and of course there's more background at that link, but I do think his qualifying at such a tender age says more about the play of his fellow Europeans than it does about his career arc.

And there's this additional reason to hope he won't be on his game:

Just a guess, but your Sunday probably wasn't as good as Matt Fitzpatrick's. The rising star from England shot 69 at the Czech Masters to move up to fifth place and in the process, earned a year's supply of beer by winning the tournament's long drive contest.

Oh yeah, he also qualified for his first Ryder Cup team. 

But seriously, Fitzpatrick is 21. A year's supply of beer at that age -- and not just the cheap stuff, but Pilsner Urquell -- might be the greatest thing in the world.

It's only for a year, so drink up, young man!

The Olympics, It's Love - Shack plays aggregator-in-chief with a long post filled with sloppy wet kisses for Olympic golf, including this from the estimable Jaime Diaz:

With that larger context as the backdrop, everyone who bet against golf succeeding—players, agents, commentators, fans—were wrong. Golf was swept along by the immense power of the Olympics and was watched by millions who might never have seen a golf shot before. Who knows how many future golfers that inspired? More than we have now. 

The players who did play were unanimous in expressing how fulfilling it all was. An effervescent Justin Rose and a serene Inbee Park conveyed deep emotion in victory. 

Those who didn’t win medals still had experiences for a lifetime. The IOC next year will vote to approve golf in the Olympics beyond 2020 in Tokyo, and the game’s best golfers won’t bet against their sport on the world stage again. 

In essence, Olympic golf has become the closest thing to the Ryder Cup: Worth it to play for free. A place—especially if it becomes, as expected, more of a team event—to deepen friendships. Something worth sacrificing for and not to be missed. Amid the distortions that come with professionalism, commercialism and politics, on the field at least, a chance for pure golf amid what aspires to be pure sport.

I agree that golf had a very good couple of weeks in Rio, thanks in good part to the enthusiasm of the players.   That this comes as surprise to folks is its own issue, as the uniformly dull week-in, week-out life on tour doesn't need to be that way.

But Jaime's comparison to the Ryder Cup is a stretch, as will become clear when we have that event for comparison in a few weeks.  But most of the love seems generated more from releief that it didn't bomb and didn't produce a Ryan Lochte, which seems like a bar set awfully low....

Shack had previously posted his suggestions to improve Olympic golf, leading with the consensus candidate:

Introduce A Team Format. Golf wants to “grow” but how about a more modest goal of trying to sustain and entertain? In randomly polling those who were in Rio attending other sports, two words came up most when considering golf's four-day 72-hole format in the context of Olympic competition: team format. Since the IOC does not want to give up more than 60 spots to prevent Olympic Village overpopulation, we are likely needing to keep the format at two-person teams consisting of the current fields. Another word that came up repeatedly: “disciplines” that expose skills other than playing 72 holes for oneself. The consensus for team is there, now we have to find the best format.

Shack is underselling and overproducing, as there's at least two suggestions bake in.  Team play is a horse beaten to death long ago, and we don't need to dwell.  Team match play would be far more exciting, but may be a bridge too far.

But the point I want to make is that the IGF needs to seriously address that field limit, because a 60-player field is simply not a legitimate competition.  Remember, because the spots are allocated by country, a 60-player field can't have more then 30 or so elite players under the best of circumstances.  Unless that can be expanded, it's the Hero World Challenge under new ownership.

As for other "disciplines", bring on a long-drive competition....

As for this suggestion, can you believe we even need to have the discussion?

Do not schedule competing tournaments by tours during Olympic week. Every tour complied on this front in 2016, except the PGA Tour. The John Deere Classic, an event that has grown in prominence, took an unnecessary backseat this year. Two players skipped the Games for the Deere because their careers were on the line, and they didn't regret the decision, but also lamented not being in Rio. The FedExCup “race” was even impacted, as Justin Rose lost ground in this points race because he played in the Olympics.  The LPGA's Commish noted that this was a concern for his tour, and his tour set aside a nice window for Olympic golf. If the PGA Tour wants the world to take a competition they worked hard to successfully produce, next-Commish Jay Monahan has to tell his members, sponsors and TV partners he'll be shutting down his tour one week every four years.

One?  How about both weeks?  Seriously, they're telling us that this is the future of our game.... but The Wyndham?  Sheesh.

And by the way, folks are way over-interpreting those ratings:

US RATINGS FOR GOLF MAJORS v OLYMPICS

Masters final round – 12.4 million

Olympic final round – 8.8 million

US Open final round – 5.4 million

PGA Championship final round – 5.3 million

British Open final round – 4.9 million

I don't know exactly how to interpret those Olympic ratings, but it's obviously apples and orangutans.....You're including the core NBC Olympic audience that at best didn't throw a shoe at the TV when they switched over to golf, to an audience that tunes in FOR golf.  I'd also add that there was pretty brutal weather in much of the country, which might have kept more folks indoors than is typical.

And in hitching our wagon to the Olympics, I'd also suggest you  consider this item to which Geoff helpfully linked.  There's good tongue-in-cheek millennial-bashing, and who doesn't enjoy that?

And now NBC’s past two weeks of prime-time ratings reveal that millennials are also right about the Olympics. Bloomberg reports that among 18- to- 49-year-olds, prime-time broadcast viewership of the Olympic Games declined by roughly 25 percent compared to four years ago. That drop can be attributed, in part, to the higher concentration of millennials in that age bracket. 

“Sports is less ingrained in the younger demographic,” Brandon Ross, an analyst at BTIG Research, told Bloomberg. “It has been replaced by other things like video games and e-sports and Snapchat feeds.”

In other words, millennials’ mastery of technology has made them disproportionately aware that the Olympics are, in truth, boring and lame.

Boring and lame?  Who says golf doesn't belong in the Olympics?  But here's the buried lede:

This is not to suggest that many individuals within older generations haven’t also come to appreciate that the Olympics are a dull spectacle built off the exploited labor of unpaid athletes and impoverished construction workers. Across all demographics, viewership fell by 17 percent. This surprising decline forced NBC to give ad buyers free commercial time to provide them with their contractually guaranteed share of eyeballs.

17%?  And that's with the games in a relatively favorable time zone.  So are the Olympics going to save golf or drag it down with it?  Discuss among yourselves....

Ryder Redux, The Yanks -  Just a quickie here, as the the U.S. team's automatic qualifiers will be known at the end of business Sunday.

The Tour Confidential panel was forced to opine on this conundrum:

3. Rickie Fowler added the Wyndham Championship to his schedule with the hopes of playing well and catching the attention of U.S. Ryder Cup captain Davis Love III. Fowler played respectably in Greensboro but was outplayed by another potential Ryder Cupper in Jim Furyk. Does Fowler deserve one of Love's three captain's picks?

Arguing in the affirmative....

Van Sickle: Outside of Jim Furyk's 58, the guys outside the top eight on points haven't done much. I don't know who deserves the picks, but I'm pretty sure Love will take Fowler anyway. He's got a match-play reputation and a resume. A more interesting question might be, should Bubba Watson be a pick? Glad I'm not captain.

Ummm.....Mr. Kotter, I have a question.  What in Hades is Van Cynical talking about?  Fowler has never won a Ryder Cup match and when drew Rory in singles never saw the fifteenth hole.  here's our GMTA moment of the day:

Godich: What match-play rep? Let's remember that Rickie can still play his way onto the team, but if he doesn't, this becomes a tough call for Love -- and not just because of Rickie's indifferent play of late. Don't forget that his next Ryder Cup victory will be his first. (Please don't confuse the Ryder with the Presidents Cup.) He has been a great ambassador for the game and I'm a big fan, but Rickie has gotten a lot of mileage out of that four-birdie finish to halve his singles match as a rookie in 2010.

Notwithstanding the steps forward in 2014 and '15, Rickie hasn't done much this year.  I suspect he'll be picked, I just think that once again the reputation seems disconnected from the actual results.

Being Tiger Woods - Golf.com has released it's second short film, celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Tiger's third U.S. Amateur in an epic match against unknown Steve Scott.  Well worth your time if you're not familiar with 

Perhaps in this summer of our golf rules discontent, you'll find a measure of solace in Scott's sportsmanship.

I was introduced to Steve by big break Anthony at a blackjack table in Atlantic City a few years back, and he was impressed that I remembered the venue and year.  Either that or he pegged me as a stalker....

Slow Play, The Penalty Stroke - Golf in Utah has it's weirdness, as I discovered last month.  But based on that, this story doesn't really surprise:

Around the ninth hole, Johnson and his wife caught up with part of the group and thought they would be allowed to play through, but again the group refused. 

Johnson then pulled a pocket knife and stabbed one person, Wright said. He was wrestled to the ground by the other golfer from the group. 

According to Wright, one man received a small cut. Wright said the victim was sent to Mountain View hospital with non life-threatening injuries. 

Johnson was taken to the Utah County Jail. 

Authorities say Johnson's wife was not involved with the stabbing and was not arrested.

The key phrase to my ear is "part of the group", as it was explained to me when we saw our first 8-ball that the typically large families will play all together.  

Now I agree that it was rude not to let the couple through, but that of course doesn't justify a stabbing.  Such disputes should be resolved in a civilized manner, say by hitting into them repeatedly until they grasp the message...