Midweek Musings

A late start to my blogging, which might be a big deal if there was any snow....

Clueless in Kentucky - J.B hasn't been helping himself  with mouth engaged, though he did pick the right guy to sit down with.  Tm, we haven't forgotten that Suzann Pettersen interview:

Two days later, there is more commentary about J.B. Holmes’ slow play than there is Jason Day’s first PGA Tour victory in a year-and-a-half, which I get. Four minutes and

change is way too long to hit a shot – even with the wind gusting on the 72nd hole of a tournament. 

I talked to Holmes on Monday, and he told me he didn’t realize how long it was taking for him to play an approach shot into the 18th hole during Sunday’s final round of the Farmers Insurance Open. He apologized to playing partner Alex Noren but defended himself and offered explanation as to why it took so long to play the shot that lit up Twitter by his peers. 

Watching the replay, it looked like Holmes had zoned out. 

“I didn’t realize how long it was taking,” he said. “We (Holmes and caddie Brendan Parsons) were just trying to make the best decision to play.” 

In other words, Holmes was waiting for the gusts to die down, so he could take the head cover off a 5-wood he didn’t trust, and play a shot to the green. Ultimately, he hit a poor wedge shot and made par to finish fourth.

Which we all get and are fine with, up until about the 45-second mark.  

But this commences the eye-rolls:

“If it bothered Alex, he could have said something and he could have hit,” Holmes said. “If I messed him up, I apologize. He still made a good swing. He smoked it. (Hitting 3-wood over the green and through the tunnel, next to the CBS booth.) I don’t understand what the big hoopla is all about. I was just trying to give myself the best chance to win the tournament. I didn’t want to mess anybody up.”

At which point during the War and Peace length saga as Alex to know that you were never going to hit....  See, J.B., for Alex to do that would take him even further out of his routine.  He naturally assumes that eventually you'll play your shot, mistakenly as it turned out.

 And how about this lack of self-awareness:

Holmes, who had a reputation for being a slow player, feels like he’s changed that habit, and doesn’t want to be incriminated. 

“I used to be slow. I’d agree with that,” he said. “But it’s been years and I’m not slow any more. I don’t get timed more than anybody else.”

Anyone that watches golf knows that J.B. under pressure slows to a speed that can only be discerned through time-lapse photography, though the images of him spitting the bit can be quite dramatic.

And how about our Tim Rosaforte, missing the story once again.  How does a competent observer not ask about how exactly he planned to win by laying up?

Geoff and Matt Adams talk past each other in the video embedded at the end of Geoff's post and, while I love the former's reaction when Adams ridiculously suggests that Alex could have played through, Matt is making an important point.  To with that slow play has many aspects, and we at this point have no mechanism to address this kind of circumstance.  In fact, we may have to acknowledge that we never will, and understand that this was simply en egregious violation of the etiquette of our game.

Fake News, Golf Edition - yesterday's news cycle brought the kind of easy Trump-bashing story that fails to interest this observer.  Ironically it comes from the aforementioned Suzann Pettersen:

LPGA legend Suzann Pettersen is fond of the sitting U.S. president. But she's not so sure 

about his handicap. 

In an interview with Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang, Pettersen detailed the many sides to her relationship with President Trump, whom she has known on and off the golf course for over a decade. 

"He cheats like hell," the 15-time LPGA Tour winner said. "So I don't quite know how he is in business. They say that if you cheat at golf, you cheat at business." Pettersen also said the president must pay his caddies well, as drives that are headed for the woods always ends up back in the fairway. She also mentioned his fondness for gimmes.

Interestingly, she actually likes the guy (interesting that they would publish such a sentiment), but this comment will have all the right heads exploding:

"I'm not a supporter of what he says or stands for," she said. "I thought it was very strange during the presidential campaign that he wasn't smarter about how he communicated." 

Pettersen caught criticism for tweeting out congratulations to Trump after his 2016 election victory. 

"He could have won more easily, but made some blunders with his statements," she said. "That's because he is so stubborn. He has not changed five millimeters since becoming president."

You mean smarter like McCain and Romney....  I know they didn't have the good fortune to run against the J.B. Holmes of Presidential candidates.

Of course, good call on skipping this yesterday, because today we have this:

Suzann Pettersen calls Trump cheating quote '#fakenews' but author stands by story

I'm sure Tim Rosaforte will get to the bottom of this.... 

All In Good Fun - Or not, as Eamon Lynch has the obligatory pre-Wasted rebuttal:

Last year there were 118 arrests at TPC Scottsdale, most for alcohol-related incidents, a figure that doesn’t include DUI busts as spectators hook and slice their way home along the highways. The Scottsdale Police Department tried to manage the wasted, offering free Breathalyzer tests at the exit in 2016. Nine thousand fans – roughly 1.5 percent of attendees that week – took the test. Four thousand of them were over the limit.

Wow, I'd never have taken the under....

Like a bar on St. Patrick’s Day, the WMPO is given over to the raucous, many gathered at the Coliseum-like 16th hole, a 163-yard gauntlet in which players are hazed and taunted while TV announcers breathlessly tell viewers how great it is to see such passionate fans.

And this from Sneds, who enjoys the week:

“Everyone loves 16. It’s the other holes. It’s 11 tee box and 14 green, where people are on their way out or whatever, had a few too many drinks, they start getting after you a little bit,” he said. “That’s when you’re like, ‘OK, come on!’ But 16 is great. You’re expecting chaos and it is chaotic. It’s when you’re not expecting chaos it’s off-putting.” 

“Chill!,” cry the enablers. “It’s only one week a year!”

Look, it makes for a different type of week, and no player is required to be there....  Unless, of course, you're sponsored by Ping.

And I also hear talk that there's some kind of football game this week, so one doesn't have to watch it.... I do think their point about enabling the Yahoos at other events is worth noting, but this bacchanal isn't going away, so deal with it.

The Second Golden Age - The estimable Bradley Klein reports from Golfweek's 5th annual architecture conference:

At an opening session, architects Tom Doak, Gil Hanse, David McLay Kidd and Kyle Phillips drew inspiration from the landmark, low-impact, naturalized design of Sand 

Phillips with mic, as Tom Doak nods off.

Hills in Mullen, Neb., the 1995 design by Coore and Crenshaw that all but launched the back-to-basics design movement. Frequent reference also was made to the multi-course resort of Bandon Dunes in Bandon, Ore., as embodying principles drawn from classic British links golf like St. Andrews: walkability, accessibility to all classes of players, and extremely varied from day to day depending upon weather,

mainly wind.

How's that for a panel?   

David McClay Kidd has many of the best sound bites:

All of which was presented during the conference in contrast to the American-inspired focus of the 1980s and 1990s on difficulty, length, aerial play and intensively lush maintenance. Kidd admits that after he debuted with the initial Bandon Dunes course in 1998, he reverted to creating more demanding courses, in large part because, as he says, “that’s what clients wanted.” Lately he’s made a reversion to classical form with the likes of such wide, generously spaced courses as Gamble Sands in Brewster, Wash. (2014) and Mammoth Dunes (2018), the second course at Sand Valley in Nekoosa, Wis.

That's his excuse for The Castle Course, and he's sticking to it....  All tweaking aside, there's always a client and often their desires are what drive some really ill-considered design.

The eye-opener, said Kidd, was a thorough re-examination of his own work that led him to see what had made his inaugural effort at Bandon Dunes so successful. “We had tees at 6,300 yards, 6,600 yards and 7,000-something, and it turns out that everyone, I mean 99 percent of golfers there, were playing it from 6,300 yards. They wanted to have fun.” 

While clients and certain publicity-seeking sectors of the golf industry were focused on making courses difficult and defending par, Kidd realized that golfers “just want to break 100. They want to find it, hit it. Not lose it.” His new mantra, he said, is “not defending par but defending birdie. That still allows the vast majority of players to get around.”

Defending birdie?   I like it....

And do read about the great work being done in restorations, most notably historic Inverness.

Ready to get on with your day?  See you tomorrow....