Friday Fragments

I know what you crave....

74 - The headline number sounds pretty good, but don't get too excited, folks:

HAYWARD, Calif. — The good news for Golden State Warriors fans is that Steph Curry probably isn't going to quit his day job. 

The bad news for golf fans is that, despite an opening-round performance that exceeded expectations, it doesn't look like he'll be around this weekend to make a little money on the side. 

In a Web.com debut marked by wild tee shots, a wizardly short game and boundless gallery goodwill, the Warriors star sharpshooter and two-time NBA Most Valuable Player treated spectators, and himself, to a gutsy four-over-par 74 in Thursday's first round of the Ellie Mae Classic at TPC Stonebrae, an otherwise low-wattage Web.com tour event that Curry transformed into a headline draw. By the end of the day, Curry's opening score had left him tied for 142nd in a field of 156, 11 shots off the pace set by the leader, Nicholas Thompson.

He beat 14 actual golfers, which is at the high-end of expectations.  Speaking of the inevitable:

There's a good chance he'll improve on today's opening tee shot. Paired with Sam Ryder and Stephan Jaeger, the second- and third-ranked players on the Web.com Tour money list, Curry started his round on the par-4 10th hole, where he sent his drive on a hooking trajectory that called to mind those old commercials starring Michael Jordan and Larry Bird in a game of H-O-R-S-E. Off the cart path. Through the gallery. Nothing but net. The ball wound up in the cup-holder of a golf cart driven by a tournament volunteer. Curry took a drop in the rough, barely advanced his next shot, then airmailed the green with his third. Only a deft chip for his fourth saved him from disaster. All things considered, a bogey on his first hole wasn't bad. "As soon as they said my name on the first tee, that's when I could barely feel my hands," Curry said. "I had to try to take a deep breath and still there wasn't anything I could do to prepare myself for that moment. But after the third or fourth hole, it was just golf and I just tried to hit some good shots."

Face it, you and wouldn't even be bale to take the club back under similar circumstance.... Care for a Shack rant?

Steph Curry, with his nine million Twitter followers, his MVP statue, his two championship rings and rare crossover talent he's willing to show off on a Web.com Tour stage, posted a first round 74 in the Ellie Mae Classic.

No one saw it live. 

No one could. They had to follow social media postings like it was 2008 all over again.

On a busy day of golf that included the Women's British, a WGC in Akron and a secondary PGA Tour stop in Reno, the Ellie Mae was never on Golf Channel's schedule. Yet, as one of the world's most beloved and fascinating athletes in his prime attempted something bold, Curry's appearance on an exemption understandably got the most social media attention despite the lack of television coverage. 

Imagine if The Logo, Jerry West, had decided to put his scratch handicap up against the pros in 1972 after winning 33-straight and the NBA title? It would have been an epic attention-getter but there was no option to televise such an event then. Now there is, and the PGA Tour missed a chance to show it's serious about becoming a broadcaster and serious about its minor-league equivalent, the Web.com Tour.

Golf Channel was criticized on social media for not showing Curry's round, but this one wasn't on them. So what an ideal opportunity for the PGA Tour, partners with Twitter and eager to show The Valley that pro golf is a product worth streaming on their burgeoning PGA Tour Live, right? Imagine the chance to stream the Web.com Tour to the hoodie set, who could watch their beloved Golden State Warrior play in a professional golf tournament as they sip Philz and cranked out world-changing code?

Yet the PGA Tour passed up a, gulp, "golden" opportunity to show that they are serious about getting in the broadcasting business. Was it cost? Was it too much work? Was it an oversight? Or some rights issue?

Before you click through, by my count Shack goes on for an additional eleven 'graphs in that vein....  carpe diem!

 Assuming that Geoff's overarching point is that if you're going to do it, do it right, I'll not quibble.  That said, I don't see this as the game-changing marketing opportunity that he does....  No doubt you could draw a few eyeballs, but would those eyeballs be there next week?

As long as we're on the subject of celebrity golfers, here's how these things usually turn out:

Tony Romo has flourished against celebrities in Lake Tahoe, but the millennials crushed him at the Western Amateur. Playing on a sponsor's invitation at Skokie Country Club in Glencoe, the retired Cowboys quarterback missed the cut after shooting 80-82.

Romo beat only two of the 155 players who completed 36 holes, and he was assessed a one-stroke penalty Wednesday for slow play. 

"He was very gracious about it," Western Golf Association tournament chief Vince Pellegrino said. "His group fell behind and missed two checkpoints. The others in the group did not receive a penalty. They made an effort to close the gap. Tony readily accepted it."

He's a worthy candidate for Miss Congeniality.....

It's Not You, It's Me -  Rory dips into the Costanza oeuvre to explain his break-up with longtime looper J.P.:

“It’s a big change,” said McIlroy, who didn’t play the 2015 Bridgestone because of an

ankle injury and the 2016 contest because he played in the French Open. “J.P. has been a huge part of my life for the last decade. A lot of great times on and off the golf course. I still consider J.P. one of my best friends, but sometimes to preserve a personal relationship, you might have to sacrifice a professional one and that was sort of the decision that I came to in the end. ... 

“I felt like it was the right thing to do and I don’t think there was any good time to do it.”

McIlroy said he was taking out his frustrations for a bad shot or bad decision far too often on Fitzgerald instead of himself. Now he’ll direct all his anger and frustration at himself. 

“There’s nothing to say that J.P. mightn’t work for me again at some point, but right now I just felt like I needed a little bit of a change,” McIlroy said. “I hate the term fired or sacked or axed, because that’s definitely not what it was. I just changed my path a little bit, but maybe in the future that path might come back to where it was. Right now I just needed to mix things up a little bit, and J.P. understood that and we’re still all good.”

So J.P. should just stay home by the phone?  

Karen Crouse, whose work I've had cause to criticize in the past, has an interesting perspective on this:

Last week, two days after finishing in a tie for fourth at the British Open, McIlroy parted with the caddie J. P. Fitzgerald. In their nine years together, Fitzgerald had shepherded McIlroy to four major championships and the top of the world rankings. 

For at least the next two weeks, Diamond, a Northern Irishman who had a decorated amateur career, will carry McIlroy’s clubs while McIlroy bears the burden of determining the yardages and choosing his clubs — and living with the decisions.

“I’ve enjoyed the last couple of days of carrying a yardage book, doing my own numbers, pacing stuff out, really getting into the shot, something I haven’t done for a few years,” McIlroy said.

And what have you been doing these last few years?  This seems true as well:

“I got to the point where if I didn’t play a good shot or if I made a wrong decision, I was getting more frustrated at him than I was at myself,” McIlroy said. “I would much rather be angry at myself for making a wrong decision than being angry at him.”

The sense is that Rory was utterly passive in these decisions, and his play suffered as a result.  I still think he needs a stronger presence, one especially strong in reading greens, but this may well help.

The early returns are promising....though the key round to watch might be next Thursday.

Other Strong Starts - Early days for sure, but I watched a bit of this yesterday:

Michelle Wie compared the coastal views at Kingsbarns Golf Links to her native Hawaii. An unusual comparison to be sure six miles from the Auld Grey Toon, but it did feel an

awful lot like paradise on Day 1 of the Ricoh Women’s British Open. 

Wie took advantage of tame, sunny conditions at Kingsbarns to post an 8-under 64 and leads a major championship for the first time since she won the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open. 

“I think Kingsbarns is definitely one of the most scenic golf courses I’ve ever played on,” Wie said. “You definitely get lost in the views out there.” 

The leaderboard is awash in red, white and blue, though not all the names will be familiar to casual golf fans. Lindy Duncan, a former college player of the year at Duke who is playing in her first Women’s British Open, shot 66 . Morgan Pressel posted a 68, her best round since late June, as did Ally McDonald (also a first-timer at the WBO) and Jaye Marie Green. Cristie Kerr, who has shown good form of late, added a 69.

There were some pretty amusing club choices as well:

At the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, Wie put an 11-wood in the bag to replace her 5-iron. This week she also has a 9-wood in the bag, which she used to make birdie from 20 feet on the 12th, 4 feet on the 14th and 6 feet on the 16th. 

“I was talking to Meg Mallon about it,” said Wie. “I was like, you won’t believe what’s in my bag right now. I’ve got an 11-wood. She’s like ‘Yeah, I won the U.S. Open with a 13-wood.’ ” 

Wie said Callaway had to go to the archives to find her the 11-wood. She hits the 9-wood from 190 yards and the 11-wood from 180. She’s also using the 11-wood from off the green for bump-and-run shots.

It's supposed to be wet for the next few days, and we'll see about the winds....

A Man In Full -  Within the last hour, Dan Jenkins posted this rich history of the majors he's seen, and there's been a few of them:

When all of this started seven decades ago, I could never have imagined that I would

someday become the Ancient Twitterer of Golf. But the fact remains that the 2017 PGA Championship will be my 230th major. 

You might expect that I’ve been to so many of them, they’ve all become a blur of green jackets, USGA rulings and pork pies. However, the fact is, I have fond memories of a bunch of them, particularly those that were won by immortals instead of lurkers, meaning those competitors who are less a part of golf’s charm than they are its mysteries. 

So, without further throat-clearing—and decade by decade—here are the most memorable majors I’ve been privileged to observe with my own eyes, type about with my own fingers, and tweet with my own mind.

Sad, because I'd like him to be looking forward to the next 230... 

It's not actually true that he was Young Tom and Bobby Jones win majors, but he does go back to some very formative years:

1950-’59: Starting with Hogan

The Masters of ’51 was my first to attend and Ben Hogan’s first to win. I had never seen a golf course so green with blue ponds and pine trees that tall. In those days the Augusta

National paired by whim rather than by scores. Thus Hogan, who had narrowly lost the Masters twice, went out two hours behind the co-leaders, Skee Riegel and Sam Snead. Sam stumbled, but Riegel got to the house with a 70 for 282. Ben eventually arrived with a four-under-par 68—the only sub-70 round of the day—to win by two.

For my taste, the Masters of ’54 remains the craziest of them all. On a windy course that week, it marked the last time that those two titans, Hogan and Snead, would duke it out in a major. Sam won their 18-hole playoff with a 70—thanks to a chip-in birdie at the 10th hole—to Hogan’s 71. But for all 72 holes, an unknown amateur, Billy Joe Patton, dominated the roars. Billy Joe led the first two rounds, dropped back, but recaptured the lead on Sunday with a shocking hole-in-one at No. 6. Then, just as shockingly, he frittered away the green jacket with an impetuous second shot into the creek at No. 13 that resulted in a double-bogey 7. Then another hasty decision led to a bogey 6 at the 15th hole. And he missed the playoff by only one shot! Hogan gave it away himself on Sunday with a pulled approach that found the water on No. 11 and cost him a double bogey. Overlooked in the reporting was the fact that a win in that Masters after his Triple Crown of the previous year would have given Ben a fourth straight major.

As a wise man once said, I shall not look upon his like again.

But why are you still here?  Go read the entire thing....  I'll wait.

Cally Goes Big -  An interesting move from a company very much on a roll:

Callaway Golf Company (NYSE: ELY) announced today it has entered into a definitive

agreement to acquire TravisMathew, LLC, a high-growth golf and lifestyle apparel company, for $125.5 million in an all-cash transaction, subject to a working capital adjustment. 

"We are very excited about this acquisition," commented Chip Brewer, President and Chief Executive Officer of Callaway Golf Company. "With its golf heritage, culture of product excellence and double-digit growth in the golf and lifestyle apparel business, TravisMathew is a great fit with our business, brands, culture and our strategy to grow in areas tangential to golf. This acquisition, once completed, is expected to be slightly accretive to earningsin 2018 and create significant value for our shareholders over the long-term. We look forward to working with the TravisMathew management team to maximize this brand's growth potential."

As we've discerned from Nike and Adidas lately, apparel offers some of the highest margins in the golf world.  Though it didn't come cheap:

The purchase price values TravisMathew at a multiple of approximately 11.8 times projected 2017 full year adjusted EBITDA. Callaway also expects to realize significant value from potential tax benefits associated with the transaction.

That's a big honkin' multiple, but the logic is that Cally should be able to push the brand into additional distribution channels...  You know the drill, if you want that Epic driver, you'll need to stock some soft goods as well.

Jordan Crossing -  Surprisingly, he's in a pretty good frame of mind...  asked about the negatives in going for the career grand slam next week:

Cons? 

“Pro is you believe you're in form. I think I'm in form, and form is a huge part of being in contention obviously,” Spieth said Tuesday at Firestone Country Club. “But when you feel that way going in, it feels that much easier to get into contention. It doesn't feel like you have to … mentally, I think, it's just a little easier, so that's a huge pro. 

"I'm not really finding any negatives in this. I've been asked this a few times, and I mean this. … It’s just a major. I say that, they are still the four events that we try to peak and think most about at the beginning of every year. But this PGA, if I'm healthy and playing well, I play in 30 of them, I believe I'll have plenty of chances to win them, but it doesn't have to be this year. If it's this year and it happens, that's great, that's another life-long goal that we've then achieved. But I believe that I'll do it someday, so if it happens in two weeks or next week, then fantastic, and if it doesn't, then it's not going to be a big-time bummer whatsoever because I know I have plenty of opportunities.”

Well, duh!   Reporters aren't typically the sharpest knives in the drawer, but you can't get to the career slam without being at this juncture....

This was perhaps even more amusing, as relates to a certain tee shot at Birkdale:

It was a bad shot, for sure. Spieth cops to that. 

But the suggestion – made on television – that it was 100 yards right of where he intended to hit it, well, that’s not entirely correct, Spieth says. He was aiming at the right rough and said the combination of a wet clubface and a not-so-good swing led to him playing his third shot from the driving range of all places. 

Here’s Spieth’s version, which he shared Wednesday at a press conference preceding the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. 

“I missed my right side of the fairway by 20 yards-ish and it hit the guy in the head and then went over the next mound. So essentially it was 20 yards offline. I hit balls further offline than that on a regular basis, but where it ended up and what it looked like compared to the fairway for viewership was way offline.

“It really wasn’t that bad. I mean, it wasn’t a good shot. It was a foul ball to the right, but I need to back myself up here in saying that I’m capable of hitting worse shots than that, OK?”

Yes. You. Can.  And will at some point, because we all do....

And perhaps you just did, though it worked out amusingly well.

Whistle, Wet -  Jason Scott Deggan at Golf Advisor on Sand Valley:

NEKOOSA, Wis. - It took generations for a glacial lake to drain and become one giant sand pit in remote central Wisconsin. Famed golf developer Mike Keiser is transforming

1,700 acres of nowhere into somewhere special in short order. 

Sand Valley Golf Resort unveiled its strong Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw design called Sand Valley for preview play in the fall of 2016 with the official debut May 1. The best could be yet to come. Nine holes of David McLay Kidd's Mammoth Dunes course opened Aug. 1, with possible preview play on the full routing by mid-September with its grand opening next summer. A yet-to-be-named 17-hole par-3 short course by Coore/Crenshaw should open by this fall as well. 

Unfairly or not, Sand Valley will always be labeled the "Bandon Dunes of the Midwest" because of its similarities to the famed Oregon resort. Beyond the Keiser connection, both offer linksy golf requiring walking in remote, albeit amazing and unique, locations. Playing dynamic short courses and taking caddies for every round are part of the ethos at each place.

He created that formula, so there's little doubt that he would utilize it here as well.  Though people don't realize that the Walking Only policy was not initially carved in stone.  But you'll have to read this for that nugget.

But what's more exciting, the golf or this?

Golfers have three great dining options - on the Warbler Terrance adjacent to a fire pit and large putting green, indoors at the Mammoth Bar & Lounge and at Craig's Porch, a snack/lunch shack near the first tee and 18th green of the Coore/Crenshaw course a short shuttle ride away from the main hub of the resort. The nine different flavors of ice cream sandwiches are already legendary.

Is it too much to ask what those flavors are?  I couldn't find out even via Google, though I did find one via this Gary Van Sickle item from a year ago:

5. ... AS ARE THE ICE-CREAM SANDWICHES

There is one concession item you must order. It is Nye’s ice cream sandwich. It's big and thick, a wedge of rich ice cream sandwiched between two chewy cookies. They’re imported from North Carolina, they’re $4 a pop and they border on the obscene. Oh, and they come in a range of flavors. You’re here once, you can’t go plain-Jane vanilla. I teed up a Key Lime. OMG.

Key Lime?  Some things are just wrong....

Don't worry, I won't rest until we get the full.... errr...skinny, on all nine flavors.