Midweek Musings

It'll be a low-wattage MM this go around, as it's quite a slow news day.  I'll do what I can, but I'm only one man...

Zurich, Year Two - We had it earlier, but folks have awoken to the format tweaking of this year's team event:

Instead of having the two-man teams compete in fourballs (best ball) during the final round, players will now play alternate shot on Sunday. 

That means fewer birdies and roars, but the Tour is hoping that the move will create more strategy and volatility – leaders likely won’t be able to run away from the pack, while the contenders have more of a chance with a good round. 

“There could be volatility,” Jim Furyk said. “It just might come in a different fashion.” 

“There’ll be a lot more hold-on as opposed to catch-up,” David Duval said.

I'm going to go way out on the limb and suggest that time will tell.... I do actually think it's a great idea to try it.  In the interest of meeting the minimalist standards of journalism, we'll give voice to the thoughtful dissenters:

The Zurich has its best field in tournament history, with 10 of the top 14 players in the world, and those stars will only hit half the shots on Sunday. That’s not ideal for either the fans at TPC Louisiana or those watching at home. 

“That’s sort of a bummer,” Billy Horschel said. “They had success last year, but they’re trying to make a little tweak and see if it’s any better. If not, they can go back to the old way.”

My bad!  I promised you thoughtful, but delivered Billy Ho....  Excepting his recent comments about Harbor Town, Billy hates everything.

But doesn't this kind of miss the point?  OK, we like seeing them hit great shots, no argument there.  But we also like seeing them deal with the pressure and other conditions, in this case the odd rhythms of alternate shot.  The great shots these guys will pull off will be all the more memorable.... Just go with it, Billy.

A group of Golf Digest scribes shared the byline on this tout sheet of nine teams to watch, but it's a little better than most such items.  For instance, he leads with Team Patrick:

Patrick Cantlay, Patrick Reed 

The Patricks are teaming up for a second straight year at the Zurich, prompting us all to ask once again, "How did these two decide to play together?” According to Reed, Cantlay simply asked him when they met up at Riviera in 2017, and Reed “thought it was going to be a great idea.” Just like that, Team Patrick was born.

Maybe, but it's not like either of these guys has done much recently.  What?  He did?  Hope he didn't wear that green shirt on Sunday....

This one is meant to prove that opposites attract, right?

Pat Perez, Jason Dufner 

Aside from the brothers Koepka, last year's Zurich leader board was littered with second-shot and short-game savants: eventual champs Jonas Blixt/Cameron Smith, Kevin Kisner/Scott Brown, Kelly Kraft/Kevin Tway, Spieth/Ryan Palmer. That was the stated reason for placing Perez (fourth in GIR percentage) and Dufner (16th in approach last season) in this space. However, let's drop the statistical facade: these two chaw-chewing 40-somethings are going to drown TPC Louisiana in their "Don't give a $&@%" swaggo, and we are more than happy to toss on a life jacket. (For what it's worth, their combined nicknames would make a helluva morning radio team. "You're listening to Volcano and the Duf on 102 the Zoo!") Throw in Dufner's NOLA track record—a win and five top-10s in eight appearances, including a T-5 with Patton Kizzire last year—look for this duo to light up the leader board, along with social media, this weekend . —Joel Beall

There's Team Cheesehead and that guy lured out of retirement, but there's a reason they closed with this one:

John Peterson, Cody Gribble 

If your life was on the line and you needed to pick this week’s winner, these two wouldn’t be anyone’s first choice. However, if your life was on the line because you happened to be trapped in a gator-infested swamp, they’d be your first call. Peterson famously pushed a gator at TPC Louisiana during this event in 2014 to help speed up play, and Gribble did him one better, giving a gator a love tap at Bay Hill in 2017. Rumor has it they’ve petitioned the course to put a reptile in every hazard and bunker. — AM

See ya later...or in a while.

Alternative History -  The Forecaddie has been on a roll, including this that I didn't know:

When The Man Out Front recently ran into Dwaine Knight, UNLV’s men’s golf coach

for more than 30 years, he thought, why not gather some lost details from UNLV’s side of the Tiger recruiting battle? 

Most know Woods chose Stanford, but many forget just how close UNLV was to snatching up the California kid. Charley Hoffman, who competed for UNLV from 1995-1999, recently half-joked, “Dwaine still probably loses sleep over not getting Tiger. He thought he had him.” 

Many thought Woods would choose UNLV, a young program fiercely on the rise. As Knight recalls, he never quite felt the Rebels had the phenom locked up. But that didn’t make losing out on him any less of a blow. 

“It was heartbreaking to lose him right at the end,” Knight told TMOF. “I really thought we had a good shot at getting him.”

If he had chosen UNLV, I guess Notah would be flipping burgers somewhere.

Narrative, Busted - I had been reliably informed that golf is DOA:

The annual economic generated by the game of golf in the United States has reached $84.1 billion, according to a study by the World Golf Foundation published Tuesday. 

The Foundation released the U.S. Golf Economy Report on the eve of National Golf Day. 

The numbers from 2016 showed a 22 percent increase from the last study, which showed a $68.8 billion impact in 2011.

 But this is rather depressing:

I'm pretty sure that my Fairview dues come to more than $38/round.....Like way more!

So Happy National Golf Day to y'all, but who's responsible for this weather?

#me too, Golf Edition - Yanno, I though this was going to be a fun item for your humble blogger, an easy case of hoisting lefties on their own petard:

WATCH: Black women allege discrimination when police are called over slow play

But, if they have their facts straight, it may not fit my narrative:

According to a story posted by the York Daily Record, five black women in their fifties were playing a round at Grandview Golf Club in Dover Township, Pa., on Saturday.

 

The group received permission to play as a fivesome when their tee time was delayed almost an hour by frost.

On the second hole, the group says they were approached by Steve Chronister, who said he was an owner of the course and to keep up with the pace of play. The women pointed out that they were in position, and the group ahead was still on the green.

The second hole?  That seems a little quick to be on them....

And it gets more curious:

The women then decided to skip the third hole, but had to wait for another group to tee off on No. 4 before continuing. 

At the turn, three of the group's five members left. The remaining two, Sandra Thompson and Myneca Ojo, were then told that the police has been called, and they had five minutes to leave the course because they had exceeded the 20-minute time limit between nines. 

When the women argued that the group behind them was still enjoying a break at the turn, they were told their club membership money would be refunded. 

"He said, 'You're going too slow, I'll give you a refund,' as if he didn't want us as members," Thompson told the York Daily Record. "I said, 'Do you realize we're the only black women on this course, and you're only coming up to us? We paid, we want to play.' He walked off in a huff."

Let's agree that there's more going on here than we first suspected.  And I do hope this is a teachable moment for my more liberal readers.  When the narrative fails to conform to the Narrative, call an audible.

Sister Act - This item is really about siblings, but there's no movie by that name.  Dylan Dethier ranks the sibling acts in golf and, given his age, wisely limits it to current players.  While we know where he's going after the women's event in LA, there's lots of obscure names to share:

8. Tony and Gipper Finau

The Finau brothers broke onto the scene at a young age. It was actually Gipper who cracked golf’s top levels first: At age 16, he finished T-58 at the 2006 Utah Energy Solutions Championship. The pair went on to appear together in the 2009 edition of Golf Channel’s Big Break series.

Gipper?  You can't make this stuff up....

Gipper, meanwhile, is holding on to his world No. 1,985 ranking, still trying to recapture the magic he had when he turned pro as a high schooler. He has played in three more Web.com tour events since his debut, each in their home state of Utah, but has missed the cut each time. Still, Gipper isn’t done chasing the dream; he’s playing on the mini-tours and has entered Q School in an effort to get back onto the game’s bigger stages.

This is my fave, however:

4. Lexi, Nicholas and Curtis Thompson 

Lexi Thompson needs little introduction. The No. 3-ranked player in the women’s game has been in the public eye for nearly half her life, and feels like a veteran even at 23 years old. Less heralded? Her two pro brothers, Nicholas and Curtis. Curtis, 25, has made just one cut on the Web.com tour in 2018, but one thing is for sure: He can smash it. Thompson led the Web.com tour in driving distance at 325 yards a pop in 2017, when he finished 90th on the money list. Nicholas, who has notched a handful of top-fives on the PGA Tour over the course of a lucrative career (collecting more than $6 million), has mostly been playing on the Web.com tour of late. He finished at No. 32 on the 2017 money list and is currently ranked No. 749 in the world.

There's little doubt that Lexi's success is partly attributable to growing up competing with her brother.  I'm not sure I'ver seen Curtis, but my amusement comes from the fact that Nicholas has the same violent swing as his sister, though it's like Lexi's swing on steroids.  It's really something to see..... but perhaps only once, lest it rub off.

You were warned that it's a slow day....