I feel like I should be able to find a nice rhythm this morning, timing my keystrokes to the sheets of rain against my mancave's windows... Let's see how it works out.
Harbor Town Happenings - I did catch the final round broadcast, the first of the event I watched all week. Not the best advertisement for our game that I've seen, but this quick take from Shack captures it:
It seemed like no one could hit a decent putt Sunday at Harbour Town--I blame the early wake up call to get play in before storms--but Satoshi Kodaira made a beauty on the third hole of sudden death for his first PGA Tour win. He had never finished better than 28th in limited PGA Tour play. That 28th was at last week's Masters, so of course we should have seen this coming.
It was Si Woo Kim, with the tourney his for the taking, that lost it with the flat stick. He missed many shorties coming home, all failing to reach the cup, including his last from further out that need to drop to extend the playoff. I'm guessing that he was also affected by the fact that the greens weren't rolled on Sunday due to the expected winds, but one expects these guys to adjust better.
As I've noted previously, I like this golf course and event, but mostly for its spot on the calendar. Post Masters calls for a low key week, and this delivers. But you know who else likes it? This guy, which has me reassessing:
The scoring average at the RBC Heritage was 70.84, which ranks as the 11th- toughest on Tour out of 29 events this season, and yet Harbour Town stretches just 7,099 yards, the 10th-shortest layout.
“I think the architects in today's game should come here and understand what this course is and why it's still challenging,” Billy Horschel said. “ Too much nowadays we're playing big, wide-open courses that really aren't great designed golf courses.”
Our Billy isn't the most astute observer out there, but blind squirrels and all... Shack has rebuttal, though it starts off overly personal:
First, in Horschel's world, he's hoping we get driver-killing "great-designed" courses so the golf ball is not restricted, ensuring on-going payments to his and other golf pro accounts.
It's a good thing that Wally Uihlein doesn't read Geoff's blog... But I've always assumed that Billy's ignorance is God-given, so no need to accuse him of being motivated by the filthy lucre and all.
If architects could import massive overhanging trees that restrict ball flight they might, but it's kind of hard to do that these days. Nor advisable on a number of levels, most notably because there is a desire by many to see the driver remain an important weapon. And even better, to see width presented to provide options off the tee.
Effective use of the driver is the very thing that Wally and the other equipment guys would argue is the reason not to roll back the ball, though I agree with Billy that there is much that can be learned from this design. But the over-hanging trees can't be exported, and I'd love to know how Billy feels about the railroad ties....
The Tour Confidential Panel took on this issue as well, though with a poorly worded question:
4. Satoshi Kodaira of Japan won the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town, where the average driving distance for the week was less than 280 yards. Harbour Town is one of our annual reminders that PGA Tour setups don’t need to be long to be challenging. In all the hand-wringing over the distance debate, do we underestimate the impact course setups can have on players mindlessly gripping and ripping?
Shipnuck: I like Harbour Town, but if players can’t hit driver is it really that great of a test? Driving it long and straight is one of the game’s great skills and when you take the driver out of play it diminishes the competition.Bamberger: Yes, when holes have shape and especially water hazards, you can set up a course that makes any shot longer than, say, 280, worthless. But length should be one of the demands put on a golfer, among many others.
I excerpted the two grizzled vets who agreed with me on driver, and you can click through for the other responses. But the question unnecessarily conflates design and set-up, two very different concepts.
In my opinion, here it's the design of the holes that provides the course's defense, the doglegs and tight, tree-lined corridors. Heck, they've a big honkin' tree in the middle of the 16th fairway. Set-up is the presentation of the course, width of fairways, speed and firmness of greens and hole locations most notably...
The other point I'd make is that trees negatively affect turf quality in many locations around the country. They also have a nasty habit of growing..... I think architects can learn much from Pete Dye's design ( sorry, Jack) as to angles and hazard placement, but those trees are a local condition.
Elder Abuse - This was just cruel and unusual punishment:
Flesch, who has served as a golf analyst for Fox Sports and Golf Channel since his PGA Tour career, found himself in a three-way playoff at the conclusion of play Saturdayafternoon at TPC Sugarloaf in Duluth, Ga.
A final-hole birdie at the par-5 18th hole set Flesch up for a date with Bernhard Langer and Scott Parel in a sudden death playoff. He birdied the 18th hole again on the first playoff hole, and then birdied it again to win the tournament.
The victory was the first in 22 starts on the Champions tour for Flesch, 50.
The final round was originally scheduled for Sunday, but a questionable forecast led to the field playing the final 36 holes on Saturday. Flesch’s 71-68 day got him to 11-under 205.
How do you make these old guys go 36....errr, make that 38?
Not That Kind of Birdie - This has happened before, most notably to Tom Kite, but still harsh:
Kraft’s ball hit a bird in flight on the par-3 14th hole, and the ball dropped into the waterin front of the green.
Kraft made double bogey and finished at 1-over par on Harbour Town Golf Links, missing the cut by a stroke.
Kraft told PGATour.com the bad break cost him the cut. He said his tee shot felt perfect and was on a good line until fate took over.
Kraft’s group asked for a ruling, figuring the player would simply re-tee without penalty. Instead, because the bird is not a man-made object, Kraft had to play it as a ball in the water.
Kraft said his ball glance off a large black bird that flew off after the glancing blow.
You can't make this s**t up.... But I think the lad took it reasonably well, merely noting the appropriate day for it to have occurred:
And yet, he's told to stop whining and play better... by these guys:
“PETA is glad the bird is OK and sorry Kelly Kraft didn't advance, but that's not the bird's fault,’’ PETA senior vice president Lisa Lange said in a statement provided to USA TODAY Sports Saturday. “Of course, he would have advanced if he'd played better on other holes — so practice, practice, practice.
"To tournament holders: If animals are ever injured, they must be taken to a veterinarian right away."
They always take the side of the bird....
The TC panel was asked to recall the worst break they had ever seen on a golf course, and I quite agree with this one:
Bamberger: For a bad break, check out the YouTube clip of journeyman Joe Daley at Q School, putting for his card to a hole that spat out his ball and chances.
Dethier: Wow, is Shipnuck letting Cink off the hook for that one as a bad break?! He must be getting soft. To me, this one’s a no-brainer: It’s Joe Daley at Q School, stroking a four-footer for double bogey to earn his Tour card by one shot when the impossible happens: the ball hits the lining at the back of the cup and pops out, sitting on the lip. As Bamberger mentioned, it doesn’t seem to exist anywhere except grainy YouTube clips now, but it is devastating.
The physics of it elude me, but it was the stakes that made it so harsh. On the other hand, I understand that Daley was a bit of a jerk, so many weren't too consumed with compassion.
The Akron Blues - The local paper bemoans the loss of their prestigious WGC event:
Area golf fans no longer will be able to rub shoulders with household names like Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Rory McIlroy. No more Dustin Johnson. No Rickie Fowler. No Justin Spieth.
In this week’s rankings, the top three players on the Senior Tour are Bernhard Langer, Steve Stricker and Scott McCarron — prominent former PGA Tour players, to be sure, but hardly living legends.
Firestone will not be missed as a venue, it being a dreary slog of a track, but memphis in August promises to restore its appeal. More important, one might think, is the loss of Bridgestone as a sponsor.... Why might that have happened?
Gordon Knapp, CEO of Bridgestone Americas, said Thursday that his company would have been permitted to keep the WGC event in Akron had it anted up enough money. Butclearly Bridgestone’s sponsorship budget is lower than FedEx’s.
“We looked at where the PGA was going with their … pricing, and frankly, we had to take a step back and take a look at our own portfolio of sports sponsorship packages,” he said.
He declined to disclose any numbers.
We saw this at the time they moved from Doral to mexico, and the premium for the WGC was seemingly mad money. At least in this case, it's done for the benefit of FedEx, the indispensable sponsor. That said, there's something amiss if you can't keep Bridgestone in the fold...
We know what Geoff thinks from this header:
The WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational Is Born, Now We Just Wait To Watch It Fade Away
Beastly hot and humid, with the FedEx Cup looming, it's hard to imagine the guys need the money that much.
His Week in Xanadu - Firefighter Matt Parziale had the week of his life, not even requiring an excerpt. The header will do nicely:
Matt Parziale's week in Xanadu: A Mercedes courtesy car, practice rounds with Tiger and Rory and crystal goblets for an eagle
OK, I lied, here's a taste:
The Saturday before, he played with three Augusta National members. On Sunday, hejoined Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel, Pat Perez and Matt Rollins, the latter the director of tournament player relations for PXG, for a practice round.
On Monday, it was 18 holes with Rory McIlroy and Wesley Bryan. “It was a great day,” he said. “When you get out there, all these guys are just golfers. They’re just getting ready to play the tournament. Everyone was great.”
Helpful, too, to a Masters rookie attempting to learn Augusta National’s nuances and mysteries in only a few days. “Golf is strange in that sense. The Patriots aren’t helping the Eagles get ready for the Super Bowl. That’s why our sport is so great. They were so great helping me around the course and showing spots where I might not want to hit it. Everyone is helpful.”
At the risk of cementing my reputation as a curmudgeon, let me cast a dissenting vote. We all loved Matt, the blue-collar firefighter from blue collar Brocton, MA, and I might think differently if the Mid-Am champ was always cut from such a bolt of cloth.
But we're well past the day when the Mid-Am champ is remotely plausible as a Masters contender, and the field is alarmingly shallow. The U.S. Am champ and runner up at least project as professionals, and they've added the Latin American event winner as well. I think it's time to say goodbye to the invite for the winner of this event.... To support this I'll give you one succinct data point: 81-79.
But I am glad he had such a good week.
I Wouldn't Bet On It - I'm shocked... shocked I tell you, that there's gambling in Ponte Vedra Beach. That TC panel takes it on with this set of queries:
1. PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan told USA Today last week that the Tour would welcome the legalization of sports gambling, a matter the Supreme Court is expected to rule on before its July recess. Monahan contends that regulated gambling would "better ensure the integrity” of tournaments. He also spoke about the potential commercial opportunities for the Tour if the ban were lifted and said he believes that gambling would help the Tour reach a broader audience. Is he right? Would legalized gambling be good for golf?
Alan Shipnuck: It’s definitely part of the fun of Open week. Golf offers so many possibilities — only one team wins a football game, but at the Open you can bet on every tee time, picking which player in the group will have the lowest round. And there are four days of competition pretty much every week of the year, so the possibilities really are endless.Josh Sens: Glad to see the Tour embracing reality. Legalized gambling is coming. Might as well try to get ahead of it and spare us all any phony moral and ethical hand-wringing about it. Good for golf? It will definitely draw more viewers. And it will be very good financially for the Tour, which says it wants 1 percent of the handle and also stands to profit from selling its data, much as professional tennis has. No sport is above corruption (see the gambling scandals that have come with the growth of tennis betting). But it’s true that regulation makes it easier to sniff out the shady stuff. As it stands now, in states where sports gambling is legal, the limits on golf bets are relatively low, so not a huge incentive to draw big-time players. Also, most of the lines are on the big-name players, who have less obvious incentive to get involved in fixing anything. But what happens when you can start betting on developmental tours here, or smaller tours overseas? The potential for Chicago Black Sox stuff grows the further down you go into the money-making ranks.
Open Championship week is a one-off, though certainly it hasn't ruined the game over there. I can't tell whether Commish Jay is preparing for the inevitable or sees this as the future, but I suspect Josh's reference to the 1% take is the relevant bit.
Live Under Par, The Reviews Are In - Like a fine wine, the Tour's multi-million dollar logo is.... well, let's just say that haters gonna hate:
Marksbury: What was wrong with “These Guys are Good”? Taglines are not my forte, but maybe something like...“Feel the Drive.”
That late logo was just perfect, wasn't it? We could spend a bunch of time discussing why, but it worked because of it's basic truth. And it celebrated the players, as opposed to being a focus group driven, transparently obvious attempt to curry favor with non-fans....
Sens: Live under Par?! Wonder what the Tour paid the marketing whizzes who came up with that one. Hmmm. Let’s see. Go Low or Go Home. You Da Fan! Did We Mention, Tiger’s Back? But why should we brainstorm for the Tour? Monahan, call me. For a quarter of what you just spent, I’ll set aside five minutes and come up with 20 taglines that are better than the terrible one you’ve got. #fireyouradagency.
Bamberger: I don't even know how to pronounce it. Josh nails it every which way to Sunday.
Yeah, Mike nails a point that I considered, though I wasn't sure how to differentiate the two pronunciations of "Live" in print.....
Shipnuck: For what was supposed to be a cutting-edge, viral campaign, the entire launch felt like a bunch of old white guys trying too hard to be young and cool. Wait, that’s exactly what it was. The Tour’s slogan should be: Read GOLF.com For The Real Skinny.
It's certainly not where you go to get the skinny on women's golf.
Let me save a few tidbits for tomorrow. See you then?
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