Thursday Threads

How 'bout 'dem Yanks!  I know this is about the golf, but Sir Didi and Carsten Charles are something...

Here was Didi's post-game tweet:

#startspreadingthenews Yankees win... THIS TEAM 🔥🔥 great job by 🎅🏾 and the bullpen🔥🔥🔥WHAT A GAME!! Just the beginning to something great!!!

— Sir Didi Gregorius (@DidiG18) October 12, 2017

You wouldn't know that he had something to do with it as well....

Care for a little golf?

Nothing To see Here -  Shack takes a first crack at the ShotLink data for the recently-concluded season and comes up with a delightful conspiracy theory, to wit, that the reason the next season starts an hour after the conclusion of the Tour Championship is to distract us from such data....  Hmmm, remind me of which Congressional committee has jurisdiction.

Best of all he uses this as the banner quote on the blog today:

The R&A and the USGA believe, however, that any further significant increases in hitting distances at the highest level are undesirable. Whether these increases in distance emanate from advancing equipment technology, greater athleticism of players, improved player coaching, golf course conditioning or a combination of these or other factors, they will have the impact of seriously reducing the challenge of the game. The consequential lengthening or toughening of courses would be costly or impossible and would have a negative effect on increasingly important environmental and ecological issues. Pace of play would be slowed and playing costs would increase. USGA and R&A Joint Statement of Principles (2002)

How lucky are we to have governing organizations working so diligently to ensure that such a thing does not come to pass?

Here's Geoff's micro-rant:

Thanks to the crack crew at ShotLink I just started looking over the 2016-17 stats as we roll into week two of 2017-18. Naturally, I went to the distance numbers first and the overall average spiked from last year's 290.0 number. 

I'm fairly certain the 292.5 yard average for 2016-17 makes it a record year, proving yet again that core work and heavy use of foam rollers can pay dividends. 

All drives in '16-17 averaged 285.1, but the records do not go back as far to put that number into perspective. 

(Just a reminder here that the USGA and R&A Joint Statement of Principles was issued in 2002 suggesting significant increases would set off alarm bells. The PGA Tour Driving Distance average in 2002 was 279.5 yards, meaning a 13-yard increase since then.)

Maybe I should get me one of those foam rollers?

Thirteen yards is enough to be of concern, and yet not an overwhelming increase over fifteen years.  Especially when it includes the benefits of conditioning and technology above and beyond the equipment, things such as launch monitors to optimize launch parameters.

But my concern is that the data obscures other factors involved, such as a greater use of clubs less than driver, course conditioning (think of the Masters mowing fairways back towards the tee) and architectural trickery to change how the game is played, such as the changes to TPC Boston's 12th hole this year.  Dustin Johnson told us that week that he laid back and hit 6-iron into the green, the longest club he hit into a Par-4 all year.  Was there a player in 2002 that never hit more than 6-iron into a two-shotter?

Geoff's got all sorts of data, including this:

Those distance intervals are quite telling, no?  And I'll just remind that we don't know that they're hitting driver all the time.

Scenes From the Hot Zone - Brian Wacker (and how perfect is that surname) files under this header:

Fore! Beware the wayward golf ball

Nothing profound here, but some fun stories, such as this:

The PGA Tour slogan is true, these guys are good. But they’re also human. For all the

years they’ve spent playing the game and practicing their million dollar swings, sometimes their golf ball disobeys. And when a shot wanders offline at a professional tournament, with spectators present (albeit not always paying attention), well, there’s a decent chance somebody will meet the working end of a Titleist. 

We’ll let you in on another secret: This happens more than you might imagine. In a four-hole stretch during the Genesis Open at Riviera Country Club outside Los Angeles, Pat Perez managed to drill three spectators with errant shots. One of them had to leave on a stretcher. 

“Everyone thinks we’re going to hit it straight all the time,” Perez said. “We don’t.”

Well, we can certainly agree that YOU don't...

But the physics of it are quite simple, at their club and ball speed any minute variability in swing path or face alignment will have magnified effects on the relative crookedness of the shot.  

But a warning, there's blood involved...

A Cautionary Tale - We haven't heard much from Spencer Levin recently...or perhaps that should be ever.  But he's one of those guys that cashed a check to change equipment and, well, you'll guess what comes next:

Levin’s downturn started in January when he accepted a club contract to play a Callaway driver and irons. He proceeded to miss eight cuts in a row, including six on the West

Coast swing when he usually makes hay. 

“I took the money,” he said. “Everybody said don’t do it, and they were right. I learned the hard way.” 

Callaway’s support staff was top-notch and their clubs are good, Levin said, they just didn’t fit his game. He stuck it out for as long as he could but finally relented. 

“I gave them their money back and went back to my old TaylorMade driver and irons,” he said. “It kind of sucked that I didn’t like (the Callaway clubs). Their guys were really cool. I just couldn’t find a driver I liked.”

This is both surprising and not....  On the one hand, all of the equipment is good and should work.  But players are fragile creatures, none more so than a short-hitter such as Spencer... 

He was surprised to learn that he has a Web.com Tour card for next season, so let's see what he can do with that...

Another Cautionary Tale - This one from Danny Willett, with a blog post on the Euro Tour's website:

What’s funny is that we, as golfers, spend so much time practicing for those moments,

working on our swings, those chip shots, pressure putts, how to deal with being in contention mentally but no one ever really prepares you for what happens next, after you achieve greatness like that. Ultimately I’ll be able to look back on that day and be thankful for all that it has given me but it’s not always easier dealing with the aftermath. 

Before Augusta I was a good, but ‘normal’ Tour pro. I was able to go about my business during the week, getting a practice round in, do my work and just prepare quietly for each week. After the Masters, every time I went to the range, every time I was on a putting green or in a practice round, there were cameras on you and everything’s being filmed and recorded. That magnifies everything to the nth degree. People that know me, know that I wear my heart on my sleeve and if I’m having a bad day on the course, I’ll show it and if I’m playing well and everything’s great in the world, you can tell. That’s just who I am. When the spotlight was on me constantly, I felt I had to dull that side of me down a little. It’s much harder to show some of that emotion, good or bad, when 

everyone’s eyes are on you.

He's hardly the first to encounter this, and let's also remember that he got a big assist from his brother before the Ryder Cup.  He's too good a player to not recover his footing, though Captain Bjorn hope that happens soonest.

Mazel Tov - How cute, a golf onesie:

Now the due date is March 2018 and first children come notoriously late....  Nah, nothing to worry about.  But I do hope they ordered two of the onesies and sent the other to the Willetts.