Weekend Wrap

Waking up today was a bizarre experience.  After playing my first two rounds of the season, to see deeper snow than experienced all winter in Utah.  I think the big guy is just effing with me....

Master of None - I am not now nor will I ever be an Ian Poulter fan, yet respect must be paid:

Much like he has the last two years, Ian Poulter had to battle all the way to the end at the Houston Open. Needing birdie at the 72nd hole to join a playoff with Beau Hossler,

Poulter came up clutch and buried a 20-footer, leading to an emotional celebration we've come to know from the fiery Englishman. 

From there, the hard work was done. All the 42-year-old needed was par on the first playoff hole to capture his first worldwide victory since 2012 and earn the coveted final invitation to the Masters. 

"Had to dig deep today, just rolled it in at the right time," said Poulter, whose final-round 67 at Golf Club of Houston was highlighted by that final putt in regulation, one that was aided by seeing Hossler's longer birdie look on the same line. Hossler's effort looked like it would fall and give him his first PGA Tour title and the same spot in the Masters, but it just missed on the high side.

I though his game sufficiently diminished that this wouldn't be possible, but he proved me wrong.  And after that cruel false alarm in Austin, I'm quite happy for the man.

Seems a given at this point that he'll be in Paris in September...  At the very least, that will drive up the amplitude on an event that's already in the red zone.  

Exit question:  Will this help save the Houston Open?  The event seems a top tier candidate for retirement, principally because of the absence of a sponsor.

A Cautionary Tale -  For The Masters, that is:

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. (AP) — Inbee Park and Pernilla Lindberg will return to

Mission Hills on Monday morning to decide the ANA Inspiration. 

They played the par-5 18th four extra times before it was too dark to continue. Jennifer Song dropped out with a par on the third extra hole, and Park and Lindberg decided to play one more hole in fading light. 

Twenty minutes after sunset with portable lights and the scoreboard helping illuminate the green, Park made a 6-foot par putt and Lindberg knocked in a 2-footer to match. 

They will resume play Monday at 11 a.m. ET on the par-4 10th.

For the Tour that has made an art form of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, this is oh so familiar....

It was a great final round for the girls, with a bunched leaderboard featuring a wonderful mix of names big and small.  It even featured two pairs of sisters in contention, if that term is loosely defined.  

After the finish of the fourth round, I had to decide whether to push myself to stay awake long enough to watch the playoff....  Eventually I decided against, mostly because I had a feeling they were going to be awhile...  None of the three ladies had the firepower to reach the green in two, but for reasons that escape me the pin was placed in a spot where the balls fed to it...  

This is why playing the same hole again and again in playoffs should be discouraged.  It's too easy to morph into a live production of Groundhog Day.

In terms of timing, the organizers didn't do much wrong, as they had an hour of daylight for the playoff.  At The Masters, though, there's barely enough time for two holes to be played.  Famously, if Adam Scott hadn't made that putt a few years back, they too would have returned Monday morning.  Just a really bad way to crown the winner of a major....

I do want to give credit to Golf Channel, who aired a full nine hours of coverage on Thursday and Friday.  Not quite the all-day BBC coverage of an Open Championship, but a nice commitment to the ladies.

Masters Stuff - We'll lede with the silly:

Patrons lucky enough to score Masters tickets will be greeted by Augusta National's brand new merchandise center, which officially opened today. 

The new facility, located to the right of the 1st fairway, took 20 weeks to build and has twice the floor space as the previous building. 

Sixty-four registers will lead to quicker checkouts, and there's also a larger shipping facility. The shop boasts 125 different styles of hats and has a few new items to display this year as well, including infant caddie jumpsuit onesies, pajama pants, Masters playing cards, vintage coasters and more. 

It's been a busy couple of years for the club. It was just last year when it opened its lavish new press building for the Masters.

Shack does his typical review of the swag, and points us to some highlights:

Garden Gnome ($35) — Do we need to tell you this is cool and a great value? Look at him!

Does Fluff get royalties?

At his blog he had this intriguing tease:

So with that, just some of the best merchandise items I found, though I've already heard rumors of something wonderfully bizarre that I missed! I will investigate and report back.

What could it be?  I'm hoping for a Clifford Roberts bobble-head, but I don't think these folks have that kind of sense of humor....

The Tour Confidential panel ledes with the inevitable Tiger question:

Josh Sens: Tiger as a betting favorite is irrational exuberance and bears no relation to his 

true statistical chances. At this point, I think it's pretty clear that he can win but I would wager heavily against it. There's just too much depth in the field. The caveat is that I've been so wildly incorrect in my Tiger predictions that if you believe anything I've said about him you probably also believe Mexico was going to pay for the wall.

Michael Bamberger: There are 30 players who I think would have a better chance to win than Tiger. I'd be surprised if he doesn't contend, but to win right now, nearly 10 years after his last major and five years after his last Tour win, is asking too much.

Click through if you're looking for folks that are picking him, but I'll remind folks of 2013.  Tiger played well enough to win five times and reclaimed his No. 1 world ranking, but he played quite poorly on the weekend in all the majors.  

Asked for their favorite non-Tiger storyline, the ink-stained wretches had these thoughts:

Sens: The general theme of old guard vs. young guns is compelling in its own right. But to pick something more specific, I'd say Rory, with his game rounding into shape just in time for him to have a crack at completing the career grand slam. That's a great threadline, especially when you throw in the demons that lurk out there for him. If he's in contention on Sunday, it will be epic theater. And I bet you a thousand bucks he favors the right side on the 10th hole.

Shipnuck: It's funny that no one is talking about the keynote player of recent Masters: Spieth. To watch a wounded Jordan brawl with the course that has defined him will be fascinating theater. But for sheer emotion, you can't top another Phil run at the jacket. Around Augusta, Woods is revered but Mickelson is beloved, and if Phil is there late on Sunday it will be bedlam.

That it will be, but Tiger would of course create bedlam as well.  And if they're both in the mix?  Next up is an interesting query, their predictions for who will lay an egg:

Sens: It's golf so things can change in an eye-blink, of course, but DJ's game looked rough around the edges last time out. Rough around the edges doesn't get it done at Augusta, yet he remains one of the betting favorites. He gets my money as the big name most likely to disappoint. 

Shipnuck: I'll say Rory. Masters week he always looks like a cat on a hot tin roof. If he misses a couple of 5-footers early in his round on Thursday his whole Masters goes pear-shaped.

That's the great thing about this course and event, one can see any of these guys going either direction....  Votes were also recorded for Bubba, Rickie and Jordan.  

The gang is also asked to pick the best and worst golf holes... here's an interesting answer:

Sens: I've only walked the course, never played it. So 12 and 13 are obvious picks. But being a sucker for short par-4s, I'm going to go with No. 3. It comes too early in the round to have spawned a zillion indelible highlights. But I love its subtlety and shot-making options. For worst, I'd say the lengthened par-4 7th, an architectural casualty of Tiger-proofing.

No. 3 is a worthy addition to the discussion, though it's also a hole that plays quite differently depending on where the pin is placed.  That Sunday pin makes it a less interesting hole in my mind, but your mileage may vary.

Marksbury: I just love No. 13. The azaelea-framed green gets me every time. And I'll second Sean's sentiments on No. 4. It just doesn't have the grand feel the rest of the holes do.

That front pin on No. 4 just leaves no obvious way to play the hole....  You'll have to click through to read their projected winners, but Justin Rose, who I like very much this week, gets a good amount of love.

Ron Whitten has an interesting history of the ANGC greens:

Of all the elements that make Augusta National a championship test, the most heralded are its greens, a confounding collection of befuddling breaks and slippery slopes. Think

of the tiny shelf on the right of the sixth green, the mammoth mounds in the 14th green, the subtle trench at the fifth, and the nasty tongue on No. 9 that propels balls back down the fairway. 

But these are not the original green contours. These are modified ones, considerably softened. The original greens were even more outrageous and outlandish. Eighty years ago, they were changed, for the better, at least in the mind of one golf course critic, who wrote: 

“The artificial thrown-up sand dune formations. which were intended to give the foreign touch to a number of greens at the home of the Masters tournament, have been replaced by a more modern American conception of proper contours to test a player’s skill.”

You're not going anywhere in this snow, so read it all.  The key figure is Perry Maxwell, though his work in reshaping the greens draws the ire of Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts at times.   It doesn't negate the audacity of the original Jones Mackenzie vision, but golf course aren't static creations.

Jeff Ritter clearly has too much time on his hands, ranking the Masters' Sundays of this century.  I think we can all agree that they should have taken 2008 off.  I've no argument with his winner, but many with his other rankings... And this one might offend a certain Canuck:

11. 2003 – Winner: Mike Wier

Just a reminder that that was the year they Tiger-proofed the course, resulting in the Mike Weir - Len Mattiace playoff.  Two shorter hitters were not to be found....

Last up, name that caddy:

Last year Ariya Jutanugarn told Kiradech Aphibarnrat that if he qualified for the

Masters, she had dibs on carrying his bag in the Par 3 Contest. She’ll be the second LPGA World No. 1 to wear the white jumpsuit, following in the footsteps of Lydia Ko two years ago. 

The Thai pair have known each other for more than a decade, growing up in the same junior golf circles, though they have never played a round of golf together. Jutanugarn plans to attend the Masters from Monday to Saturday, flying out Sunday for the LPGA tournament in Hawaii. 

“I’m going to stay with him too, same house,” Jutanugarn told The Forecaddie. “Hope he has a couch available for me.”

I didn't remember Lydia doing that, but she has some helpful advice for Ariya:

Any advice for Jutanugarn’s first loop? 

“Get the right size fitting jumpsuit thing,” she said. “I reckon mine was long.”

Tell him that, should he be leading when he comes to No, 9, to hit it in the water....

We'll be flooding the zone this week, but for now we'll go elsewhere.

Udder Stuff -  Shack did his usual April Fools posts, though it seems more forced than ever.  The pics are really all you need:

I get his point, though it would be an easy carry....

An this:

I see what you did there....  The good news is that Lydia is increasingly available for weekend filming.

Friends don't let friends do time....  ESPN checks in with Billy Walters, who has unceremoniously removed a certain golfer from his X-Mas card list:

"Here is a guy that all he had to do was come forward and tell the truth," Walters said in October, as he leaned forward in a chair behind his nearly 10-foot-wide office desk, its

marble top home to three computer monitors. "That was all he had to do. The guy wouldn't do that because he was concerned about his image. He was concerned about his endorsements. 

"My God, in the meantime a man's life is on the line. He's going to go to prison. And you got prosecutors up there during the entire trial, the entire month -- all they talked about over and over was me giving my friends insider information. That is all they talked about. And they knew those jurors were all up on the internet reading that stuff about Phil [profiting from the Dean Foods stock purchase]."

OK, it's really hard to know what he means by this, and he's not a man worthy of the benefit of the doubt.  The story doesn't reflect well on our Phil, though not in ways that would seem to help Walters:

Both Walters' team and prosecutors agreed that, in the summer of 2012, at the height of the insider trading, the professional golfer owed a sports gambling debt to Walters of $1.95 million. Also stipulated was that Mickelson had accrued and repaid similar gambling debts in the past to Walters. 

The government argued that Mickelson's text and phone communication with Walters in July 2012 was tied to Dean Foods information Walters had been hearing from Davis, the former board chairman. On July 30, Mickelson purchased 3,900 shares of Dean Foods in an account under his and his wife's name. He purchased another 240 shares in trust accounts for his then-minor children. A day later, Mickelson invested $2.4 million in an additional 196,100 shares.

The question I've long asked is why that debt was unpaid.  The allegation that Phil is protecting his reputation is both true and highly ironic, as a man worried about said reputation would not be a pal of Billy Walters....  Phil was quite lucky to avoid any legal consequences from this incident, but it's quite the black mark for him in many ways.

However, the issue for Walters seems to be the source of his information in trading in the stock, and I don't see where Phil would have exculpatory information that would take Walters off the hook.  The most likely scenario seems to be that Phil received the insider information from Walters, and likely was smart enough to not inquire as to the the source.

But absent this stock tip, would the gambling debt has remained unpaid?