Weekend Wrap

I know, a curious post title when the weekend didn't, actually wrap....

It was an aggravating Sunday for your humble correspondent, as Xfinity seems to not understand this sports thing.  They have changed the software on their DVR's to allow me to only add a half-hour to the end of the scheduled program....  The first this smacked me in the face was the Vikings-Saints game a few weeks ago...  anyone remember how that game ended?  

As for yesterday, I was lucky enough to capture every moment of J.B.'s pre-shot routine....  you know, the EP version.  More on that in a bit, for sure.

Tiger, The Reviews - First from Shack in Golfweek:

Little about Woods in the Farmers Insurance Open looked old. Sure, we saw some woeful driving by a legend’s standards, a record number of “feels” references and the old

Tiger future schedule vagueness. But those standbys almost seemed like charming reminders of the old Big Cat in an otherwise wildly successful competitive golf return.

“After not playing for a couple years and coming out here on the Tour, playing, you know, a solid four days, I fought hard for these scores,” he said after a T-23 finish. “This was a lot of fight.”

I got old watching him playing from the rough....  As for the schedule, here's Geoff's take:

As he maps out that run for a fifth Masters title and pursues other career-defining moments, you can pencil in this creature of habit for appearances at Riviera due to his foundation’s ties to southern California, the Honda Classic near his Florida home, and Bay Hill where he’s won eight times. It’s very possible he may just turn up at Augusta having played only four times. Few can picture him adding a Valspar in Tampa or Houston the week prior to Augusta.

Given this opening performance, a little progress at Riviera should bake in the light-schedule approach. Assuming, Faldo says, if the “sync” is there with Woods’ swing and driver play.

While everyone was all over the two-way miss, only Rex Hoggard was able to quantify it:

This new version of Woods looks something like the old version of Phil Mickelson, a player who is prone to miss fairways by first downs, not paces, yet someone who seemed to relish the challenge of escaping from even the most precarious of situations. 

Woods was an equal opportunity offender, missing fairways right (62 percent) and left (37 percent), and appeared utterly baffled by his driver, which seemed so promising the last time he played at the Hero World Challenge.

First downs?  Tiger was missing fairways by post routes....

This from a guy in the front row sounds about right:

“Obviously, he has to drive it better. The short game looked pretty tight, and that’s always a plus. And he looks comfortable putting. He just needs to get some reps,” his caddie, Joey LaCava, said. “He needs to get back to Florida to get more practice in, get more reps, and get tournaments under his belt. It’s like when I started with him in late 2011 and early 2012, he just needs some time and he just needs some competitive rounds.”

As for this?

“He's young, he's 36. I guess it's all relative,” Woods joked when asked about Federer’s victory. “In that sport he's very old, but in our sport, I'm only 42, that's not that old.”

 It's not that young, either....  

Bob Harig also got some quotes from Joe LaCava:

"He felt good,'' said Woods' caddie, Joe LaCava. "Ninety holes over five days in a row. I know he did that in the Bahamas, but those were three and a half hours, and now we're playing five-hour rounds. That makes a difference because you're adding about seven, eight hours on your feet, playing golf, thinking about what to hit and hitting shots. So I'm glad he got through that.

Fair enough, Joe.  Harig also sums up some of the stats for the week:

Like Saturday, Woods found just three of 14 fairways during the final round. On Sunday,

he hit only one over the final nine holes. For the tournament, he hit just 17 of 56 fairways -- the fewest he has hit in a PGA Tour event in which he played four rounds. The previous worst was 20 at the 2004 Tour Championship. 

He hit 12 of 18 greens during the final round, 42 out of 72 for the week, and he got up and down 19 of the 30 times he missed a green. It is just the third time since Woods' win at the 2013 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational -- his 79th and last PGA Tour victory -- that he shot all four rounds at par or better.

The Tour Confidentialistas were asked to assign letter grades:

Jeff Ritter: Tiger's return last month at the Bahamas was a feel-good birdie-fest on a gettable course against a small field. Torrey was the real deal. I expected him to be rusty

and figured he was 50-50 to make the cut. Tiger's play wasn't always pretty — in fact, it was rarely pretty — but he survived the cut and despite playing the better part of four rounds out of the rough pulled out a top-25 finish. You can pick away at individual parts of his game that need improvement, but this week, on this course, I give him a solid A.

Josh Sens: I said last week that I thought he'd finish right around the cut line, and that he'd hit enough good shots to give the optimists cause for hope and enough poor ones to give the doubters cause for skepticism. That's pretty much how I think it played out. I'd give him a C- for ball-striking and an A for his short game. B overall.

Michael Bamberger: A for effort.

Fair enough, though everyone has their own scale on which to grade him.   I think he got much of what he needed out of the week, and has a right to be optimistic.  It sets up Riviera to be of interest when the circus goes there....  will he be able to find a fairway without a compass, as well as whether the chipping can survive the Kikuyu.

Chip Beck, Call Your Office - Playing the role of arch-villain, we offer up the carcass of J.B. Holmes....  But where to start?

Shack is spewing saliva with his rant on the topic:

Tim Finchem famously discouraged slow play penalties during his reign as

Commissioner. Other than Glen Day in 1995 and an odd slow play stroke penalty at last year's Zurich Classic, the PGA Tour has used a secret fining system to protect player brands and breed a culture of entitlement.

Rarely have things spilled over into as loathsome a display of self-centeredness as J.B. Holmes taking four minutes and 10 seconds to play one shot in the 2018 Farmers Insurance Open final round. He faced a decision of whether to go for the 18th green in two shots or lay-up. Two strokes back and needing eagle to make an eventual playoff, Holmes ultimately chose to lay up and did so terribly.

But in dog years, that's.....  It felt like an eternity.

This kind of situation is why we invented social media, right?   Though I'm mostly underwhelmed by the reactions, except for this guy:

I'd suggest the one his caddie was smoking....

The TC panel had some thoughts on the matter as well:

Ritter: All tournaments grind at a slower pace in those final groups on Sunday, but 4 minutes to play a shot — from the fairway! — is over the line. I look forward to Holmes receiving a swift and severe punishment from the Tour to ensure he learns his lesson. Oh, wait… 

Sens: A rigidly enforced shot clock is long overdue on Tour. (And in all play, frankly.) The dilly-dallying J.B. did was a glaring reminder as to why. 

Passov: So late in the game, I'm more tolerant for some indecision and delay. Wind blowing, lots of considerations, all that. But I draw the line here, because I did get the feeling that Noren was "iced" by Holmes' tardiness, and that ain't right. Yes, major ethical error here — needs a fine, and something more. 

Bamberger: A joke. Play the shot. Be aware of other people. That's a central ethic of the game.

The problem we have is that we don't have a proper mechanism for addressing slow play.  We all instinctively understand that the combination of late-round Sunday pressure and challenging conditions will create some indecision and therefore take a bit longer.  On the clock, J.B. would have had 30-40 seconds to play his shot, and we can all agree that he shouldn't be limited to that in swirling winds playing 238 yards over water..... But what he did was completely abusive to Alex Noren.  

But this tweet seems to indicate that J.B. doesn't get it:

The world has done a fine job of slamming J.B. for his glacial decision-making, so I'd like to focus on two other aspects of this hot mess:

1. 4:10 to make that effed-up decision - Contra Ryan Lavner's tweet above, if you're not trying to win, I'd rather watch the friggin' Grammy's....  and if you're needing a three and not going for it, you're not playing to win.  I get that he didn't like his yardage and that the winds were swirling, but you're a PGA Tour professional and can hit a golf ball 238 yards.  I'm very charitable with letting him take some time, lots of time, to hit the dramatic shot to try to win.  To lay up?  
2. J.B. Under Pressure?  Not Pretty - One of the pleasures of watching professional golf is the graceful manner in which these guys perform exceptionally well under conditions that we can only imagine, with cameras and microphones in their faces and over-hearing Dottie Pepper describing ow difficult their next shot is....

Did you watch J.B. on that final nine?  Tugging wedges thirty yards left and mis-hitting putts?  And this is a movie we've seen before...  It's like he stops breathing and his pace of play and decision making suffer as well.  It really makes one appreciate how good these guys are, and kudos to Alex Noren for surviving all that he saw.....

I do hope that Jim Furyk is paying attention, because this is a guy to skip when it comes to Captain's picks.

Rory, Denied -  It was apparently quite the rousing finish:

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Haotong Li held off Rory McIlroy to win the Omega Dubai Desert Classic Sunday by a single stroke, denying the Northern Irishman's

bid to win his first title in 17 months.

Haotong finished a tournament-record 23-under-par 265 after a final-round three-under 69 to win by one shot over McIlroy, who also shot a 69. 

The 22-year-old from China made a 10-foot birdie putt on the last after McIlroy had ramped up the pressure by reaching the par-5 18th hole in two shots.

The early season has given life to Euro Ryder Cup hopes.  Not only have Rory, Rahmbo, and Fleetwood played well, but the supporting cast looks promising as well:

England's Tyrrell Hatton finished third on 20 under after hitting his second shot into the water on the 18th hole, while France's Alex Levy was fourth with a 269.

Paris is unlikely to be a walkover, which is for the best....

I'll leave you there, and we'll catch up on other stuff tomorrow.