Tuesday Tastings

Tomorrow is a travel day, so let's see if I can do right by you folks today....

A Deep Dive - John Feinstein with a provocative header:

The missing ingredient in Rickie Fowler's game

The use of the singular is itself provocative.... But first the set-up:

Truthfully, Fowler’s inability to close the deal on this particular Sunday in Phoenix doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. What matters more is where he’s headed as 

he closes in on his 30th birthday—which will come this December. 

By almost any measure, Fowler is about as successful as anyone on the planet, whether they play golf or not. He’s extraordinarily wealthy; he’s movie-star handsome; he’s among the very best in the world at his job and everyone—EVERYONE—likes him. 

Which may be part of the problem.

Maybe it's the plumb-bobbing?  

Big paychecks. Lots of TV time. Making friends on the course, in the locker room and wherever he goes. Fowler’s also been a very good Ryder Cup player, chosen in 2010 as a tour rookie because U.S. captain Corey Pavin was told he would be great in the team room. 

Which, again, may be part of the problem. 

OK, so how can being a terrific player beloved by everyone, popular with corporate America as anyone, blessed with a smile that makes women go weak at the knees, possibly be wrong? 

How about this: He’s too nice.

OK, John, that's the ticket.  Look, it's really hard to win out there, but you know who else are really nice guys?  Yeah, Jordan and Justin and all those other youngsters.....

Phoenix On My Mind -  At least Mike Bamberger took it on before the event... After it's over, folks suddenly seem to realize that having 200,000 people over-served in a confined location is...well, there are gonna be issues:

Rickie Fowler is the poster child (er, guy, as he nears age 30) for all things cool on the

PGA Tour, both in promotion and practice. So when golf’s Leo DiCaprio says he was “a little disappointed in some of the stuff that was said” by some obnoxious fans during the early stages of his opening round at last week’s Wasted Management Open, Phoenix, you might have a problem. 

That same day, one fan yelled “Tater tots!” in the middle of Jordan Spieth’s downswing on the 18th hole. There was also a streaker. That was on Wednesday, before the tournament even began. 

These were just a few of the incidents that played out in what is becoming an increasing amount of debauchery during the biggest party in golf. 

Now, a few bad mashed potato heads always seem to spoil it for everyone else, yes, but for one week a year it is becoming the norm more than the exception. How exactly is this a good thing?

That's a fair question.  But another fair question is how does this differ from any recent installments of the event?

Hank, Unplugged -  This is a wildly irresponsible header:

The Forecaddie: Tiger will win another major, not this year

The Forecaddie, who's doing some good reporting, said no such thing.  He's merely reporting the comments of another....Yeah, that guy:

“I think he’s going to win another major,” Hank Haney told The Man Out Front. Haney coached Woods from 2004 until 2010. While he’s confident Woods will add to his major tally, he’s not optimistic it will happen in 2018. 

“If next year’s venues were this year, then I’d say I think he can win a major this year. But I’m a little hesitant about the venues this year,” Haney said.

 Hmmmm, are they not going to Augusta this year?  Shall I let him go on?

Woods’ record at this year’s major venues is relatively middling by his standards. At the U.S. Open venue of Shinnecock Hills he finished T-9 at the ’04 Open and withdrew with a wrist injury at the ’95 edition as an amateur. He twice has played the British Open at Carnoustie, logging a T-7 in 1999 and a T-12 eight years later. He never has competed at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis, host of the PGA Championship in August. 

The 2019 U.S. Open will be at Pebble Beach, where Woods won by a record 15 shots in 2000, the same year he also won the regular PGA Tour event there, the AT&T National Pro-Am. He was T-4 in the ’10 Open at Pebble. Next year’s PGA Championship is at Bethpage State Park in Long Island, N.Y., where Woods won the U.S. Open in 2002 and finished T-6 in ’09. He hasn’t played competitively at Royal Portrush, which hosts the British Open for the first time in 68 years.

I've long thought that Hank should simply stop commenting on Tiger, for obvious reasons.  But it's a little silly to be picking courses for a horse we still don't know.  If he's going to drive it as crooked as he did at Torrey, that's one thing.... But he's gonna be working on that and he might even give Brandel those two minutes.....

A Links Tease - Seems awfully early for this, no?  But John Huggan sets the stage in grand fashion:

CARNOUSTIE, Scotland — Bleak. Barren. Desolate. All are adjectives that have many times been applied to the stark and often windswept links of Carnoustie. In mid-summer, 

Famed Hogan's Alley, the 6th hole.

that is. And mostly when the Open Championship has come calling—seven times now—at the small and unpretentious Angus town hard by the north shore of the Firth of Tay. In early February, such ominously foreboding descriptions are perhaps even more applicable, especially on a dank, grey day for which the Scottish word “dreich” was invented. 

But only if scenery is your sole guide. For golfers who know what they are looking at, Carnoustie has always and clearly represented nothing other than the very best of links golf. Well, with one exception. But let’s not go too deeply into the misguidedly rough-covered nonsense that was the 1999 Open. The one scarred by Jean Van de Velde and won by Paul Lawrie.

Lots that's of interest, including this:

“We have actually widened some of the fairways,” Boath says. “The 11th, for example, is wider on the right side near the green. But everything else is pretty much the same as 2007. No hole is narrower than it was then. I take some pride in the fact that this course doesn’t really need to be lengthened or strengthened. If it plays fast and firm, it will be a great test, one that will allow the players to decide how they play each hole. I want them thinking, rather than just standing there smashing drivers and hitting wedges onto the greens.” 

And the rough that so dominated conversation back in ’99? 

“It was clear afterwards that nobody had liked the way the course was back then,” Boath says. “There were a lot of negative comments. If we could do it all again, I think we might have graded the rough a bit more. It went from fairway to jungle pretty quickly.

“We work on that a lot actually. Over the last few years we have put a lot of effort into getting rid of the poorer grasses like Rye and Yorkshire Fog in the rough. We want to encourage finer grasses like fescue, ones that don’t get so juicy. I want players to have a chance to recover when they miss a fairway, but only if they hit a really good shot. I don’t want that shot to be too easy, but not so hard that it is impossible to do anything other than hack-out.”

Yorkshire fog?

In other linksy news, Rory has lightened his load:

Paul McGinley believes that Rory McIlroy's decision to step back and share the Dubai

Duty Free Irish Open hosting duties from 2019 could be massive for his career.

"Even though he has won it, he has missed the cut for four of the last five years. So while his commitment to playing will remain, it is a question of handing over responsibility and we are happy to take on the mantle. 

"We owe Rory a lot for where the Irish Open has come from and where it is going. So it is only right that we take responsibility off Rory's shoulders and let him do what he does best.

A reminder that this year's event will be held at our Beloved Ballyliffin's Glashedy Links.  While there's no downside to this news, buried deep is this distressing bit:

But while McGinley says it's "imperative" the event is held on a links in the Republic of Ireland in 2019 with The Open scheduled for Royal Portrush two weeks later, a return to parkland venues cannot be ruled out after that with the likes of Mount Juliet and 2026 Ryder Cup hopeful Adare Manor two obvious candidates. 

"There won't be as much pressure in 2020 to host on a links as next year," McGinley said. "So it may well go inland. Or the European Tour might prefer to stick with the links swing.

Sure, if you want to ensure that no one will play in it or watch it.... The recent success of the event is directly tied to creating a series of links events leading up to The Open Championship, so by all means go inland.

TV Talk - Martin Kaufmann with some thoughts, first as relates to Phoenix:

Last year a production executive suggested to me that the par-3 16that TPC Scottsdale would be a good hole to show without any announcer. There’s so much activity within

the confines of that stadium setting that there’s little that an announcer can add. And now, with CBS’ expanded use of Toptracer, viewers know what is happening on the tee shots. 

CBS takes the opposite approach, having Gary McCord on No. 16. McCord, as we know, seems determined to cram as many words and tired jokes as possible into each on-air hit.

As much chatter and as few golf shots as possible.....

 And then this to get your hopes up:

CBS has been hyping its use of Toptracer this season. This unquestionably is a big, if overdue, enhancement to the coverage. I’m particularly looking forward to seeing how Toptracer will improve CBS’ coverage of the Masters. (For insiders, that’s what is known as sarcasm. Come April, I fully anticipate that CBS executives will tell us that Toptracer is great everywhere – except at the Masters.)

I love the sarcasm, though I think it's misdirected.  My understanding is that the club controls all aspects of the broadcast, accounting for the absence of so many components of a modern golf broadcast, including not just tracer, but a blimp and on-course reporter as well.

Even more infuriating, is that they allowed the use of a tracer on their streaming coverage last year.

Cheap Shots -  In which we maturely address the important issues of the day:

Trump would just have them deported - English golf club plans 'aggressive campaign' to shoot dozens of Canadian geese

Does Erica know?  Rory McIlroy will take on Paris Hilton

Phil's entire career in one header - Lefty Rallies, Stumbles But Upbeat In Phoenix