Late Week Laments

The remotely programmed DVR captured the Golf Channel coverage, to my great surprise...

Torrey Daze - I thought he was hitting on all cylinders:

Tony Finau quietly went about his business on the North Course, cruising to a seven-under 65 to take the solo lead after 18 holes. Finau faces the South Course on Friday,

where he'll begin with a one-stroke edge over Ted Potter, Jr. and Ryan Palmer. 

Finau, 28, began his round with consecutive birdies, and followed up a dropped shot at the difficult par-4 fourth with back-to-back birdies once again. He made another at the eighth, and finished the front nine with a par to turn in four-under 32. Finau added four more on back for a field-leading nine birdies, none more impressive than his last at the par-4 18th that he rolled in from long range to finish with 65. Barring a disaster on Friday, the 2016 Puerto Rico Open winner can extend his PGA Tour made-cut streak to 18, with his last miss coming at the Players last May. He's already on pace for another strong season, having finished solo second at the Safeway Open and T-11 at the WGC-HSBC Champions.

Oh, were you interested in someone else?  Plus, Tony's wasn't even the round of the day, as Ted Potter takes that honor with his 66 on the South (and yes, the North is less of a pushover than it was pre-Weiskopf).

Alan Shipnuck might want to keep some metaphors in reserve with his game story lede:

LA JOLLA, Calif. — For the first round of the rest of his life, Tiger Woods was paired with Patrick Reed and Charley Hoffman, in a 10:40 tee time on Thursday morning. But as Woods toured Torrey Pines, he was mostly accompanied by old ghosts. Tiger has more history at Torrey than any other championship venue, going back to when he was a teen phenom lording over the Junior Worlds. In a career defined by reinvention, Torrey Pines has always been a constant, the place to measure the ebbs and flows of a career unlike any other.

That's true enough, though I didn't sense the ghosts intruding as Alan did.  Here's what Alan saw:

On Thursday, Woods looked nothing like the wunderkind who 19 years ago went a

tournament-record 22-under par, ramping up for a stretch of the most dominant golf ever played. Woods, 42, is now thicker and less supple. His reconstituted swing remains powerful but is no longer an astonishing act of violence. In the mid- to late-aughts, when Tiger won four years in a row at Torrey, the game was almost too easy for him. Thursday's even-par 72 was an almighty struggle, as Woods often whipsawed drives into the juicy rough, airmailed a couple of greens with a wedge in his hand and never made a putt over four feet, often meekly missing on the low-side, including an itty-bitty par putt on the 13th hole, one of his three bogeys. But he never stopped fighting, and that alone was a victory; it was at Torrey in 2015 that an injury-riddled (and emotionally spent) Tiger withdrew mid-round, famously citing deactivated glutes, though the horror of the chip yips may have been what really chased him from the course.

One round is not a large enough sample size to know whether Woods is merely rusty or if his skills have eroded appreciably. Afterward, he was unblinking in assessing the shortcomings of his play, but Woods summoned just enough quality shots that there were times during the round when he strolled down the fairway smiling and jauntily twirling his club. The vibes at Torrey Pines are not all ancient history: the last Woods renaissance, in 2013, began with a win here, launching a Player-of-the-Year campaign. That remains one of the tallest mountains he has climbed, rising from the wreckage of his sex scandal to make it back to No. 1 in the World Ranking. (His 74-75 weekend at Torrey in 2011 was a measure of how far he had fallen.) Five years and four back surgeries later, can Woods go back to the future and be anything like the player he once was? One of his playing partners on Thursday, Patrick Reed, believes so.

Shack is a tad more upbeat in his Golfweek Take:

SAN DIEGO, Calif. – An even-par 72 will hardly register in the pantheon of great or even slightly memorable Tiger Woods’ days at Torrey Pines. In more than a hundred rounds here from his Junior World days to his remarkable professional success, Woods’ 2018 season-opening round looked and felt infinitely better than last year’s ultimately unsuccessful bid to return from back surgery.

Although it's an awfully low bar, the comparison to last year is apt, since yesterday triggered n such concerns.  He looked like the same guy we saw in December in the Bahamas, so that's a start.

John Strege with Tiger's reaction to his best shot of the day:

At the par-3 16th on the South Course at Torrey Pines, 190 yards across a chasm, Woods nearly made an ace. He hit it to eight inches of the hole, a tap-in birdie that was the

highlight of an indifferent round of even-par 72.

“It’s just a full 6-iron, throw it up in the air,” he said. “The greens are really springy, so I was trying to land it soft. And we can’t see anything land from back there so we’re just listening for some noise and people started cheering.” 

That’s why they were here.

For once the guy screaming "Get in the hole" can't be criticized, as it almost did just that.....  Let's see how he deals with the rock-hard greens of the North later today.

 Golf.com posts some interesting numbers from the round..... this confirms that the speed that we saw at Albany remains:

314 — Tiger's average driving distance in Round 1, which tied for ninth among the field.

And these:

8 — Greens hit in regulation on the back nine, after he hit just four in regulation on the front side. 

1 — Times Woods has missed the cut at Torrey Pines, which happened last year when he shot 76-72. He'll likely need to shoot under par to have a chance, although the North Course historically plays easier than the South.

Obviously that last item is a tad misleading, as it ignores 2015, when his glutes famously failed t activate.

Bob Harig captures some interesting quotes from playing partner Patrick Reed:

Reed, who has developed a bit of a bond with Woods since the 14-time major champion mentored him at the 2016 Ryder Cup, was keenly aware of what was happening. 

"There were some things out there that were pretty cool to see,'' said Reed, who was grouped with Woods and Charley Hoffman for the first two rounds. "He hit a high, tight draw driver. He hit that low cut that went miles. Some of those cuts he hit off the tee today were insanely long. You're thinking a cut isn't supposed to go that far. He's hitting a flat cut out there 30 yards past your driver and you're like, all right. ...''

May I just interject at this point, what the eff is going on with Patrick?  He's done exactly nothing since that Ryder Cup and, while it is still early, he may put Captain Furyk in a tough spot if he doesn't start playing better.  And he amusingly made his caddie, who doubles as his brother-in-law, lie down on the green to read putts, which went from amusing to spit-out-my-coffee hsyterical when they missed a three-footer.... badly.

This from Tiger may be the most revealing:

"I didn't think there were going to be that many good scores out there,'' he said. "I mean I'm in over 80th place and shot even par. There was no wind out there to actually kind of give us any trouble.''

Errr.... you're surprised that in perfect scoring conditions that even par is worth nothing?  Have you been watching any golf the last few years?  These kids can golf their balls.....

Tiger's first tee troubles have not gone away, kind of endearing, no?  Also a throwback was his obviously faster tempo with the driver.  As for the putting, his speed looked good most of the day, but he sure didn't make anything.  The worst of that was the par miss on thirteen that provoked much discussion about his alignment....  Little doubt that he didn't start that one where he wanted, but I couldn't see a trend there from my couch.

Today shapes up as a quasi-important round, methinks....  The world won't end if he misses the cut, but he needs to show some progress to keep the weight of the world off his shoulders, I'm thinking.   Not only will visible progress keep everyone calm, but his next start is at dreaded Riviera, where he's never played well and the grainy Kikuyu grass could expose any hesitation in his short game.

As an aside, I thought Nick Faldo was mostly at his babbling, incoherent worst on yesterday's broadcast.  In fact, if I had the time, I'd like to go through a transcript for you, as at times it was hilariously funny....and his inability to distinguish Justin Rose from Brandt Snedeker was the least of it.  

But the one place he made sense was in his plea to let Tiger get at least 36 holes in before putting him under the microscope.  Of course, that's not the world we live in, but let's at least keep in mind that his objective is to have it come together in April, not this week.

Putter Headcovers at Twelve Paces - The best story of the week broke Wednesday night from the Web.com event that finished that day in The Bahamas.  Here's the original account:

When players lose their cool, it’s certainly not a pleasant time for the caddie. What

occurred Wednesday, though, was certainly a rarity. 

The Web.com Tour’s Bahamas Great Abaco Classic was finishing up with Rhein Gibson in position for a potential win or at least a high finish. The Aussie pulled off the latter with a solo third showing at 15 under, two shots behind winner Adam Svensson. 

But the performance included a bogey at the closing par 5 when a birdie would’ve likely forced a playoff. Gibson’s second shot found a hazard and he took a penalty drop.

The drama really began to simmer when Gibson was assessed an additional one-shot penalty after his caddie, Brandon Davis, retrieved the ball in the hazard before any drop had commenced. That’s because an official ruled that the looper breached Rule 18-2 by picking up a ball while it was still in play.

OK, so Gibson actually apologizes for the unprofessional behavior, but that doesn't stop a Twitterspat from ensuing.  And the rule itself, not to mention the ruling, are really quite bizarre.  The best I think is for you to watch this Morning Drive video.

The basis for the penalty seems to be the specific interaction between the player and his caddie, which in this case is overheard by the rules official.  This is Davis' take on it:

I'm finding this a bizarre juncture in the evolution of golf rules.  Remember back at the Hero when Matsuyama tamped down his divot after chunking a chip, potentially improving his lie?  He was not penalized for that because he looked the rules official in the eyes and said it wasn't his intention to cheat....  It seems here that the penalty is a result of the wrong words coming from the player, that "Well, I guess I'm not playing it now" as opposed to "It was never my intention to play the ball".  This is profoundly silly as a way to structure the rules, word will quickly get around as to how to speak to rules officials.

But perhaps Mr. Davis should have left it that, as this hostage video is unlikely to do him any favors:

He makes the same good points, though he rambles on interminably.... But it's mostly the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed homage that so off-putting.  Remember?

At least KSM had a shirt on.... or something on.

As the writer notes, this is likely to be the most exciting Wednesday in golf this year.

Peace In Our Time - Tiger may be OK with his even-par 72, but this news had him absolutely giddy:

There was an extra pep in Tiger’s step over the last five holes of his Farmers Insurance Open pro-am round and The Man Out Front completely understands why. 

Woods learned on the 14th tee of his pro-am round that it may be one of the last times the 42-year-old PGA Tour veteran will ever have to play 18 holes with three or four amateurs. He was informed of a policy change by the PGA Tour’s player liaison, Ross Berlin, who came out on the course to tell Woods that the Tour has officially implemented a rule starting next week allowing all Tour events to install a “nine and nine” format. 

That means players will only have to play nine before handing their group off to another player, a format used successfully by the LPGA. The first official pro-am played under the new format will be at next week’s Waste Management Open.

 That'll make a lot of the guys happy as well.  

I shall leave you there, my friends.