Weekend Wrap

We've arrived safely to Jackson, WY, and despite the awkward arranged of my work area, we'll have at a couple of items just so y'all don't forget about me.

Rickie Don't Lose That Number - One could almost feel sorry for the lad, as he needed this one quite badly:

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. (AP) -- Rickie Fowler didn't care about pretty. He cared about winning. 

Staked to a four-shot lead, Fowler hit one putt into a sprinkler hole and a tee shot into the water. But when his lead was cut to one shot, Fowler answered with two big birdie putts to regain control and finished off a four-shot victory in the Honda Classic. 

The bogey-bogey finish kept him from setting the 72-hole record at PGA National. 

That wasn't important.

First and foremost, I didn't see a lick of it, as we were on the road for te better part of the day.  I gather from Shack that Johnny was harshing the mellow:

Still, it was an undeniably bizarre 2017 Honda Classic final round with several players hitting loose shots, including Fowler. Johnny Miller voiced his concern at Fowler's inability to close things out and, along with his NBC cohorts, expressed his surprise at the "poor" quality of many misses.

Cue the millennial police!

I'll just say that the hardest thing to do sometimes is to get it to the clubhouse when you're in control.  And that PGA National would be a tougher-than-most place on which to do it, water being everywhere...

I gather this is the nub of it:

Rickie Fowler survived a tumultuous final round at the Honda Classic, where he won

with room to spare despite a number of front-nine errors and a pair of closing bogeys. The victory is his first on the PGA Tour in more than a year, but it still left Golf Channel and NBC analyst Johnny Miller questioning Fowler’s ability to close. 

“Obviously a win is a win, but you’ve got to learn to finish out Sundays like a true champion,” Miller said during the telecast. “He hasn’t learned how to do that yet.”

Meh!  Johnny has said far worse...  There are supportive tweets from Rory and Luke, but this from the man himself says it all:

As for Fowler, he took Miller’s comments in stride while addressing the media with the winner’s trophy at his feet. 

“Well, I started with a four-shot lead and I still won by four,” Fowler said. “I didn’t play great. It wasn’t a pretty round. But we got the job done. A win’s a win.”

What would have happened had someone taken a real run at him, who knows?  

The Tour Confidentialistas took on the question of whether he has what it takes to be elite, and here's a couple of sample reactions:

Josh Sens: Elite player or occasional trip to the winner's circle? Not sure those two are mutually exclusive. So many guys can now win on any given week, the occasional trip to the winner's circle is dang good. Fowler has the ability to win any tournament, anytime. But if by elite we mean DJ, Rory, Jordan Spieth, Jason Day production, then no. I don't see him as a fixture in the top five.

Pete Madden: I don’t think Fowler is a future World No. 1, but if he musters a major title, what’s the difference between his resume and Adam Scott’s, Justin Rose’s or Henrik Stenson’s?

It just seems like we're in a portion of the cycle where majors are going to be very difficult to win, given the depth of fields.  You'd think he'd win one, but he'll likely need a week like this one, where he didn't miss inside seven feet, to do it.

As for that sprinkler head reference above, you can see it here... Tells all we need to know about Florida golf.

Walkin' It Back - Bryson tries to make amends with this mea culpa:

Shack had this in response:

I'm not sure about this "family" he speaks but one presumes there are not secret handshakes, just USGA championships which bond the winners with the USGA family.

Geoff, you feeling OK?  For years he's had a running "Five families" bit referring to the major golf organizations, including numerous "Omerta" riffs.  Bryson serves a softball to his forehand, and he just let's it pass?

Who's Being Political? -  Just a really silly back and forth in that TC Panel.... This is the query:

2. Donald Trump was back in the golf news this week. In a story by SI senior writer Michael Bamberger, PGA of America CEO Pete Bevacqua said the President met with him after the election and talked to him by phone after the inauguration. They have played golf together about 20 times over the years. Bevacqua also defended the PGA's decision to keep a pair of major championships at Trump courses. Meanwhile, Rory McIlroy became the latest professional to play a round with Trump. McIlroy defended his decision, saying he often plays with people who don't share his views. Who is making the bigger political statement: power brokers of the sport who maintain business relationships with Trump or Tour players who tee it up with the President?

I feel bad for the scribes because it's obviously a God-awful question with no obvious way to answer it.  That said, some answers are worse than others:

Ritter: And it's not "just golf" to the vast majority of fans and casual observers who read these stories about Bevacqua and Rory. It comes off as an endorsement of the Trump agenda.

As Freud famously said, sometimes a banana is just a banana....

Your right, Jeff, that it's not just golf.... It's also respect for the office as opposed to the incumbent.... I would submit that none of will like a world n which every action is considered an endorsement, so how do put that Genie back in the bottle?