Nothing like a little snow-turning-to-freezing-rain to keep a guy glued to the telly....
Return of the Golden Child - It wasn't exciting in any conventional sense, though it can be interesting watching a consummate professional work his way towards the inevitable:
Jordan Spieth kept it simple Sunday and won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am for the ninth PGA Tour title of his young career.
Spieth started with a six-shot lead and no one got closer than three all day. He putted for birdie on all but one hole and closed with a 2-under 70 for a four-shot victory over former U.S. Amateur champion Kelly Kraft, who shot 67.
U.S. Open champion Dustin Johnson shot 68 to finish third.
The scenery was as spectacular as it gets on the Monterey Peninsula. The final round was on the dull side, and that was just fine with Spieth.
One got the sense that there wasn't much difference between Saturday and Sunday except that he stopped making putts... The ball-striking was pretty darn good over all four days, admittedly on shortish courses by Tour standards.
Ryan Lavner has this confirmation:
In 2015, Spieth ranked in the top 15 in strokes-gained driving, approaches, short gameand putting. It was clinical. But Spieth’s ball-striking tailed off last season, and he said he worked as hard as he ever has during the offseason with swing coach Cameron McCormick.
“He’s always hungry,” Greller said. “He’s not somebody who is ever going to coast. It’s fun to work for a guy like that. Always hungry. Always driven.”
The hard work has paid off. Though he has bemoaned a cold putter – the middle two rounds boosted his confidence, pouring in putts on spongy, bumpy greens – Spieth has been one of the best iron players on Tour and ranks inside the top 10 in strokes gained overall.
“People think it’s only his putter,” Greller said, “but he’s incredibly well-rounded when you really break down the stats.”
And this from our new fave on the Tour Confidential Panel:
John Wood: That he's doing it with his ball-striking first and foremost. Jordan's always had a well-deserved reputation as a phenomenal putter, but he basically hit 90% of his greens this week, which is an absurd number. He actually lost a half stroke in the strokes-gained putting stat, which is usually his bread and butter. For the YEAR, and I know it's a small sample size, he's hitting 85% of greens in regulation. If you putt like Jordan Spieth and start hitting it like that, look out. Players and caddies are always looking for command and control of what their ball is doing. No surprises. Boring domination. Jordan has that right now. And very briefly I'll touch on this. The AT&T is one of my favorite events, but to play well, you have to have a great attitude and patience, patience, patience, especially with the weather we had this year. With some of his past perceived emotional reactions on the course, I'd say that's a big sign that we are going to see a big year from Jordan.
And Wood doesn't even mention the 6-hour rounds... A couple of thoughts on where things stand... First, and most obvious, Jordan rounding into form as we hit the glide path to Augusta can't be a bad thing for golf fans. The image of him on No. 12 last year won't soon fade, but let's remember that his last three finishes there were 2-1-2.
Is it possible that CBS improved this week, that perhaps they've taken the criticism to heart? Or is that merely the soft bigotry of low expectations? I didn't see all of Saturday, but it seemed that they overcame their worst impulses.... There were no armchairs on the 17th tee, no "Help Me, Kostis" swing analyses and no Dottie Pepper chalk talks....
Of course there was too much Jake Owen and Justin Timberlake, but in all fairness the latter holed out from everywhere... And how about the day that Kelly Kraft had? You're a Tour rabbit having a great week, and you show up Sunday paired with The Great One! There's something very cool about that.... And even better, The Great One is trying to stay out of YOUR way....
Lots of rookies in the field, but perhaps none more important than this one:
Opened in 1919, the seaside masterpiece, site of this week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, at times needs a touchup to its historic facade. The 14th hole was the latest toundergo such a restoration.
The green at the 573-yard par 5 was one of the smallest on the property that fronts Carmel Bay, at only 3,000 square feet. The odd design didn’t allow for puttable hole locations on almost half of the green. To many players, the 14th was difficult; to others, even unfair. In the past year, the green has been expanded to 3,800 square feet, allowing for more hole locations. The work was a collaborative effort among Arnold Palmer Design, the U.S. Golf Association and Pebble Beach Co.’s R.J. Harper, the executive vice president of golf, and Chris Dalhamer, the director of agronomy.
“I think that it was a good change,” Luke Donald said. “I've heard some of the locals like the charm of the old green. But really, they could never use any part out in the righthand side. Now you can. You feel like you can run it up.”
OK, we're headed to the deep grass, so feel free to speed read..... The problems with this green are a minor irritant for the Clambake, where they only need two pin locations, but are profound for the 2019 U.S. Open, where they could need five. Greens shrink over the decades due to mowing patterns and play from bunkers, and slopes tend to increase in severity, making this green almost comically unusable under U.S. Open firmness and speed....
But here's the thing.... our Shack is not happy. Back to Alex Miceli:
The renovation, which began after last year’s Tour event, used early 20th-century photographs of the Jack Neville-Douglas Grant design to help capture the historic contour of the greens. Architects took advantage of modern technology to improve playability of the hole. Among the changes: the green meets USGA specifications, a SubAir moisture-management system was installed and bunkers were renovated.
Neville-Grant laid out the original course and are still credited with the design. But the unsung hero is Chandler Egan, who with the great Dr. Mackenzie redesigned the course to host the 1929 U.S. Amateur. Here's Geoff's mini-rant:
However, Miceli's image and description of a restoration focused on Douglas Grant and Jack Neville's 1919 green instead of the once-brilliant Chandler Egan green created 9 years later and lasting until recently, suggests a serious setback for efforts to preserve Egan's brilliant pre-1929 U.S. Amateur renovation.
Yes, the Egan green had become too severe for today's speeds, but the front hole location has been usable in my lifetime and it was fun when Stimp speeds were in the 8's and 9's. The remarkably cool Egan tier should also have been preserved in some way for historical accuracy and better variety of hole location looks.
Having never played the course before the Egan work, I can't help you here. But Geoff seems to feel strongly about this issue, and he knows what of he speaks....
Egan was quite a good player, winning two Ams and taking silver at the 1904 Olympics. The other interesting factoid concerns that 1929 U.S. Amateur... At the height of his powers, Bobby Jones shockingly lost in the first round of match play. Travel being a huge issue in that era, he had some time to kill, and chose to check out the new Cypress Point Club. he was so impressed, that a few years later he hired Dr. Mackenzie to co-design a small club he planned for the former Fruitlan Nursery site in Augusta, GA.
One last note about the new 14th:
From a sampling of the 48 players who completed play in Thursday’s weather-suspended first round, the 14th played to a 4.667 stroke average, ranking as the second-easiest hole of the day. In four of the previous five Tour events here, the hole played to an above-par stroke average.
Of course the hole played easier, though that wasn't the main intent... But these were early results with an easy pin placement and soft conditions.... And, to be fair, these guys eat up 3-shotters....
GIS Update - Shack showed up in Orlando last week, including a tour of the Golf Industry show....I know, but even though your eyes are glazing over, stick with me for a minute. His interview with the head of the Golf Course Superintendents' organization is here, OK, it's passing strange to talk about water usage as cars are floating away in California... But we also have indoor revetted bunhers, as well as recycled artificial turf used for bunker sod.
Want to see your golf course (or the restoration thereof) before any dirt is moved? Now you can via the power of Virtual Reality.
Lastly, you know the designs you've seen in outfield grass? Like this:
These are coming to a golf course near you soon, though hopefully not the actual Red Sox logo....Something presumably more fitting for a general audience, say a Cialis logo.
Those Wacky Euros - As the old saying goes, they're so focused on what they can do that they seem to have lost any thought of whether they should...
Here's the latest wackiness:
Innovative GolfSixes concept unveiled by the European TourThe European Tour is today delighted to unveil GolfSixes, a revolutionary and novel short form of the game which further illustrates the Tour’s desire to embrace innovation and originality in professional golf.
The inaugural GolfSixes event – featuring a prize fund of €1 million – will make its debut on the European Tour schedule at the Centurion Club in St Albans, to the north west of London, on May 6-7, 2017.
The event will feature two-man teams from 16 different nations, each nation being represented by its leading ranked and available European Tour member from the 2017 Exemption Category List as at Monday March 13, who will be joined by a compatriot of his choosing from within European Tour Membership.
Just a couple of quick reactions.... First, while I'm generally supportive of experimentation, there are always limits:
In addition to amphitheatre-style stands around the tees and greens, there will be music and pyrotechnics on the first tee and at various points around the course, with all players miked up to help bring fans closer to the action.
I've used the P-word on occasion, but I'm thinking they're using it in its literal meaning.... Is this, you know, wise?
Lastly, they're stepping all over this week's innovative format with this announcement... Didn't Mr. Pelley take PR 101 in college?
Rio Loco, A Continuing Story - Neil Cleverly was an unsung hero of the Olympics, the superintendent that worked closely with Gil Hanse to make the Olympic Golf Course ready for two weeks of competition. But his harrowing interview makes clear the folly of what occurred:
I had three of my guys killed in my time in Rio. They ran one bloke down and clubbed him to death. Another mistakenly went into a favela and was doing something illegal and he was chopped up. Then, last October, another, who was let go after we downsized after the Olympics, went back to being a pizza delivery guy. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was shot in the head. You live and breathe every day with these guys.
Funny, I don't remember the nice folks from Golf Channel covering that....
The protests started as a few and built up. The rumour was that a local politician didn’t like the developer so he was paying people – 100 real a day, which is about £25, to sit outside and throw abuse. That way you get people turning up, the most they could otherwise expect was £250 a month.The sustainability ones were the most fanatical, they were saying we were killing animals, plants and removing indigenous plants and we weren’t doing any of that. The amount of times we invited them to see what we were doing– they never came in so we knew they were just there to cause trouble, they didn’t give a shit about the environment.
He says he'd do it again, but do we want him to? I just continue to think that our games long-term association with the IOC is not helpful to golf...
That TC Panel linked above was asked about Rio and Tokyo, and mirrored our governing bodies:
Ritter: My optimistic case is that golf is a global game, and it has the power to change lives, inspire and bring people together. My cynical case is that NBC no doubt raked a truckload of money running ads for 17 days on Golf Channel during the Rio Games, and golf will ultimately stick around if for no other reason than to keep the broadcasting suits happy.
Bamberger: The very simple reason why it should is because golf in the Olympics was an unexpected delight in the summer of 2016 and there's no reason why it cannot go from strength to strength. If they made some radical changes to the format — How about a co-ed two-person team game? — it could be even better. But you cannot play it at a course with restrictive policies like that, and that ongoing problem is likely contributing to the glum mood about the whole enterprise. It can turn around. I expect it will.
I think they're way over the top on the actual competition, given the weakness of the field. But expectations were so low, and a small number of players, most notably Justin Rose, were so enthusiastic that it seemed like the '75 Masters....
At least Tokyo looks promising....Or not.
More tomorrow, but for now I need to get on with my day.
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