We were in the city for theater yesterday, so fortunately I missed all the first-rate play... Shall we lede with the ladies?
Lexi Channels Her Inner Doug Sanders - Bill Fields with the set-up:
Thompson went to No. 18 leading by one and was on the green of the 425-yard par 4 in regulation. From 60 feet after reading the putt with caddie Kevin McAlpine, she lagged
A box with fake money: Just what I wanted! beautifully, cozying her ball two feet left of the hole. So little was left that if Thompson hadn't been worried about stepping in the lines of fellow competitors Austin Ernst and Jessica Korda, she said she would have putted instead of marking.
When it was time, to finish off a tournament and end a trying season in style, there was no reason to call McAlpine over for his opinion. "I just mentioned to her, 'You've got it,' and my job's done," said McAlpine, who didn't watch what happened next.
Did he pull a Stevie and rip his bib off? Video is at the link, but I don't recommend to anyone who's a fan of or related to Lexi..... or for anyone that plans on playing golf again.
The thing is that two feet seems like an exaggeration, and yet the putt doesn't even threaten the cup.... Add this to our recent discussion of these season-long awards:
With Thompson's bogey leaving her in a tie with Jutanugarn and Jessica Korda at 14-under 274, it was left to see if Jutanugarn could win without having to go to a playoff. From 15 feet -- the same distance from which she had birdied No. 17 after making putts more than twice that length for birdies on Nos. 13 and 14 -- Jutanugarn sank it to make extra holes unnecessary.
Not everyone got a trophy, but the wealth was shared.Jutanugarn collected $500,000 for winning her second tournament of the year and seventh of her career. Despite the blunder on the final hole, Thompson won $1 million for claiming the Race to the CME Globe, the tour's season-long points competition. With a 2017 average of 69.114, she also edged Sung Hyun Park by .113 of a stroke to win the Vare Trophy, named for Glenna Collett Vare, one of the finest golfers in the period before women even played professionally.
For the first time since the award's inception in 1966, Rolex Player of the Year is shared by two golfers, So Yeon Ryu and Sung Hyun Park, who after a full season of competition were deadlocked in points.
It cost her a chance at this event as well as POY, though it mostly makes us revisit that 4-shot penalty way back at the Dinah Shore. Good times!
Upon Further Review - Was it just last week that the Tour Confidential panel was fitting Justin Rose for his Hall of Fame vestment.... and this week, not so much as a question about the Euro Trash. Was it because of this?
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Tommy Fleetwood was crowned the EuropeanTour’s Race to Dubai champion Sunday after a spectacular collapse on the back nine by his nearest challenger, Justin Rose.
Rose appeared to be on track for a third win in as many starts when he eased to a 19 under total after 11 holes Sunday without any trouble on the Earth course of Jumeirah Golf Estates. But his round unraveled after that with bogeys on the 12th, 14th and 16th holes to finish with a two-under par 70 and a share of fourth place.
With Fleetwood struggling to make birdies and finishing way behind in joint 21st place on 11 under 277, Rose needed to finish in sole possession of fourth to win his second Order of Merit title.
The confusing times continue, as Jon Rahm won the event for Tommy Fleetwood the Order of merit. Stick around, we'll have more on both of these tours....
Didn't I See this Guy on a Milk Carton? - Brian Wacker with a good backgrounder on surprise winner Austin Cook:
Part of the beauty of golf, particularly at the highest level, is that there are all sorts of ways to play a hole. Or in the case of Austin Cook, who won Sunday’s RSM Classic byfour strokes over J.J. Spaun, a few different paths to make it to the big stage.
Unlike other sports, it’s rare when a successful college golfer goes straight to the bigs. Cook, a Southeastern Conference All-Freshman for Arkansas in 2010, an All-American the following year and a fixture in the Razorbacks lineup with nine career top-10s before turning pro in 2014, took a circuitous, and at times testing, route to finally getting his card for the 2017-'18 season.
That's largely because there's so damn many talented players and limited opportunities....
Item of the Week - Alan Shipnuck with a much-discussed piece on the future of The Ryder Cup, which also provides us an amusing postmodern moment. Alan's basic premise is that event is over... yanno, dead, deceased, finished...stick-a-for;-in-it! Shall we let him make his case?
The Ryder Cup is dead — you just don't know it yet.
One of the greatest events in sport is on the verge of irrelevancy. The young, talented, hungry golfers from the United States, benefiting from the cohesive leadership of the Task Force era, are going to roll to victory in 2018 in Paris. This will be the first American win on European soil in a quarter century and, coming on the heels of an overpowering U.S. win in '16, will set the stage for a decade-plus of blowouts, sapping the intrigue out of the Ryder Cup. It's going to get so lopsided that you can expect future Ryder Cups to have all the dramatic tension of…gasp!…the Presidents Cup.
OK, Alan, can you explain one thing done by the Task Force that wouldn't have otherwise happened? he trys to, though I remain unconvinced... After describing the aged and infirm nature of Europe's core, he adds this about the U.S.:
Meanwhile, just look at the big steps taken by the U.S. players since the last Ryder: Jordan Spieth, 24, won another major and reasserted himself as golf's alpha male; Dustin Johnson, 33, spent almost all of 2017 at number one; Brooks Koepka, 27, won the U.S. Open. You know who has never even played in a Ryder Cup? Justin Thomas, 24, merely the reigning player of the year. Throw in Rickie Fowler, 28, and Patrick Reed, 27, and you have a rock-star core for the next decade or more — not to mention the fact that these guys will be augmented by wily vets (Phil! Kuch! Zach! Bubba! Sneds! Duf!) and some spicy young comers (Daniel Berger, Kevin Kisner).
That list of "wily vets" is spit-out-your-coffee hilarious, because I'm guessing that the only one of those that's on a future Ryder Cup team is Phil, and that may well be as captain. Seriously, dude, Bubba?
I do actually agree with his basic point about the ebb and flow of talent, and that Paris 2018 will be a golden opportunity for the Yanks. That said, I'd be reluctant to pass judgment past next year's event, as the visibility is difficult.
As for that postmodern moment, the Tour Confidential panel took on Alan's piece, with this query:
4. European golf fans, writers and at least one Masters champion were not thrilled with Alan Shipnuck's take on how the Ryder Cup is "headed for a decade-plus of [U.S.] blowouts, sapping the intrigue out" of the matches. The column was roundly rebuked on the other side of the pond with Sergio Garcia tweeting, "Looks like @AlanShipnuck can predict the future now, so I wonder if he wouldn't mind telling me the next 5 winning lottery tickets too! Unbelievable." Is Shipnuck's crystal ball right?
And among those commenting on the inflammatory premise was the author himself, who is already walking it back:
Shipnuck: I will note for the record that I wrote that column for Golf Magazine, a monthly with a long lead time. Since then, Tyrell Hatton has gone crazy and Paul Casey announced he'll return to the Euro tour, so Europe looks to have a little more depth than when I typed those fateful words. I still stand by the prediction. The U.S. nucleus of Jordan-DJ-JT-Koepka-Rickie-PReed is simply too good, and they have another five of six Cups together.
You no doubt see where I'll go with this... If Tyrell Hatton is sufficient to cause a reassessment, then the original assessment was speculative.
And while I'm always concerned about sharing an argument with Travelin' Joe, it seems he nailed this one:
Passov: I'll agree with Alan's premise, but not his conclusion. Hey, he's paid to write thoughtful pieces and to give opinions that will elicit reactions. He succeeded brilliantly here. It makes excellent sense. But I'm an old-timer. I've witnessed one Ryder Cup after the next over the years when the U.S. was heavily favored on paper — and lost. Folks, it's match play, with that weird foursomes format thrown in for good measure. Anything can happen in 18 holes of match play, between professionals. Unless it's the Presidents Cup.
On a related note, there was this question as well:
3. At the European tour's season finale, the DP World Tour Championship, the 23-year-old Rahm prevailed, with 26-year-old Englishman Tommy Fleetwood taking the Euro tour's season-long Race to Dubai. Rory McIlroy has for many years been viewed as the European player with the most upside for the foreseeable future. Did anything you see this year change your opinion on that front?
Bamberger: I don't think you can talk about McIlroy and Rahm in the same breath, from what I've seen, starting with the head and going right through the chipping game. McIlroy is the best European player, by 1,500 meters.
Sens: Agreed that Rory remains the towering talent but we've seen how life can interfere. There are good reasons to worry about Rory's health. Given what he's got in the bank and other things he's got going in his life, it's also not crazy to wonder about his hunger. To say nothing of his putting. I say Rahm wins more majors in the next five years.
Geez, it's a tough crowd.... I get that Rory has four majors and Rahm has three wins total, but given Rory's recent woes with the putter and wedge, plus his injuries, I think this is way closer than 1,500 meters.
I'll give last word on this subject to the majestic Tweeter Alliss:
You mean like Justin Rose?
Your Morning Laugh - I've never heard of Hamilton Nolan or Splinter News, but I'm going to go way out on a limb and guess that he doesn't play our great game. What makes me draw such a judgmental conclusion? Well, here's his well-argued lede:
“Golf is a good walk spoiled,” a famous man once said, speaking to the author of A Book of Quotes. Would it not, in our modern world, be more accurate to say, pithily, “Fuck golf—golfing ass motherfuckers?”Yes it would. Golf has spoiled much more than walks. The sort of people who enjoy golf do not walk. They ride in ridiculous carts, or are carried in litters by servants. In a more just world they would run, from angry mobs of non-golfers, seeking to reclaim public lands that were taken and clear-cut into sandy wastelands and painstakingly replanted with exotic astroturf-like non-native grass studded with carefully planned hills and curves and mowed and watered and cared for far better than the people tasked with caring for it, all so that a Regional Manager could put on a pastel purple shirt with sleeve cuffs and smoke a cigar away from the office while squinting in the sun from beneath a branded visor.
Golf is against humanity. So humanity must be against golf.
He makes a good case for minimalist architecture, but the last golfer I saw carried in a litter by servants was....well, never. But that's hardly the pint, is it?
And since every article must have a photo, can you guess what was chosen? Of course you can....
OK, Hamilton, but if you ban golf he's just going to spend more time in the office... Are you sure that's what you want?
Joel Beall does a credible job of Fisking the item, including this:
At this statement, I can already hear the Golf Propaganda Community rushing into action. “Not all golfers are like that,” they will say. Sure. Though most serial killers are men, Aileen Wuornos managed to murder seven people in a single year. Something to be celebrated? Golfers believe so.
Wow, serial killing. That's quite the parallel. Feels like you've been sitting on this Wuornos analogy for some time. Sadly, not sure it served as the literary device you intended.
Aileen Carol Wuornos Pralle (February 29, 1956 – October 9, 2002) was an American serial killer who murdered seven men in Florida between 1989 and 1990 by shooting them at point-blank range. Wuornos claimed that her victims had either raped or attempted to rape her while she was working as a sex worker, and that all of the homicides were committed in self-defense. She was convicted and sentenced to death for six of the murders and was executed by lethal injection on October 9, 2002.
Enjoy Joel's righteous Fisking, as Mr. Nolan has unresolved anger issues.... His mother must have been a golfer.
Where Have You Gone, Lydia - What's become of our little girl? If you'll remember, last year about this time she decided to change EVERYTHING.... Randall Mell with the update:
Much was made of Ko beginning the year with sweeping changes, with new equipment (PXG), a new coach (Gary Gilchrist) and a new caddie (Peter Godfrey).
In the final summary, it wasn’t a Ko-like year, not by the crazy high standards she has set.
She saw her run of 85 consecutive weeks at No. 1 end in June. She arrived in Naples holding on to the No. 8 ranking. She ends the year 13th on the LPGA money list with $1,177,450 in earnings. It’s the first time she hasn’t finished among the top three in money in her four full years on tour. She did log 11 top-10 finishes overall, three second-place finishes.
How did she evaluate her season?
“I feel like it was a better year than everyone else thinks, like `Lydia is in a slump,’” Ko said. “I feel like I played solid.
That is a decidedly minority opinion, though Mell ignores the elephant in the corner, which I'll hint at with this photo:
Our girl hasn't been the same since she lost the glasses....
Joking aside, I've always been worried about Lydia's long-term prospects because she's such a short hitter... We play an extremely difficult game, and it's made all the more difficult when you cede a significant distance advantage to your peers.
Keith Pelley, Unhinged - I find myself liking the man and enjoying his willingness to experiment with new formats and amusing promotions. For instance, there was this video of Euro players trying to hit a 2-yard wide fairway in the beautiful countryside of Dubai. Shack thought it a coming attractions video, assuming no change in the ball.
Other times, he's like the crazy Uncle in the attic, as with this:
Within five years, golf will exist in a shorter format, according to European tour CEO Keith Pelley.
"I do believe that this is a very special game with incredibly skilled players in it, and it has the makings of just exposing personalities and athletes and I've worked with them my whole life, they are great individuals and great role models. But in order to do that to a wider audience, we have to look beyond the 72-hole traditional tournament," Pelley said from the season-ending DP World Tour Championship in Dubai.
Errr....No! And you know who agrees with me? Yup, Keith Pelley, for this is the next 'graph in that item:
Although Pelley asserted that the 72-hole tournament will always be at the core of competitive professional golf, he cited a continued need for innovation. The European tour has been at the forefront of format experimentation since Pelley took over, and will continue to keep its product fresh.
Glad you came around to my way of thinking.....Golf already exists in any form you can dream up. Heck, we played a three-ball skins game on Saturday, but with the stymie re instituted to amuse ourselves.... But big-time events need to be at 72 holes of stroke play, there's just no other format that's remotely feasible. Those millennials can just suck it up!
I'll leave you here, but with much to discuss tomorrow. There's been some interesting developments on the golf ball front, so tune in tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment