Late-Week Logorrhea

I shan't even waste your time with an introduction, let's just have at it....

Players, Day One - We'll get to those Super Groups shortly, but first a note about those that actually played some golf:

The World Golf Ranking is a nice conversation piece between Sundays, though Dustin Johnson seemingly would rather others discuss it among themselves. He’s content to let

his golf speak on his behalf. 

It made an affirmative statement in the first round of the Players Championship, when Johnson shot a bogey-free six-under par 66, his best score ever on the TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. 

Johnson is tied for the lead with Webb Simpson, Matt Kuchar, Chesson Hadley, Patrick Cantlay and Alex Noren. Defending champion Si Woo Kim, Sergio Garcia and 51-year-old Steve Stricker are among those one stroke back.

Benign conditions will typically lead to a flood of red numbers, and such was the case yesterday.  There's also this note about DJ:

More incredibly, the notorious feel player employed the AimPoint green reading 

Are we certain he's not simply flipping Austin the bird?

technique made most famous by playing partner Adam Scott.

“Just not making enough putts,” Johnson said after making 111 feet of putts. “It’s definitely helped. Because I’m a feel putter anyways and so the way you’re doing it really is you’re just feeling it, so it definitely, it works.” 

Hitting 17 of 18 greens, Johnson’s 31 putts placed him 15th in strokes gained putting after the morning wave. 

“I’m very pleased with the way I’m putting it today,” Johnson said.

Also, a new putter in play, a TaylorMade Spider Tour Mini, which he describes as follows:

“I always liked putting with a blade, I putted with one forever,” Johnson said. “I’ve been using the Spider for the last year or so and this was kind of in between.”

Gotta be the coke liquor talking, because this looks nothing like a blade:

Yesterday we had this Dylan Dethier item arguing against the Super Groups, though he seems to have barely touched on the best reason to discourage the practice, to wit, that it harshes the narrative when they all suck.  And, golf remaining very much golf, it's gonna happen...

Here are your results for the two Super Groups or, as Shack calls them, mega pairings.

Morning:  Rory - 71

                Justin - 73

               Jordan - 75

Afternoon: Tiger - 72

                 Rickie - 74

                     Phil - 79

Living Under Par?  Eh, not for these guys....

Here's Steve DiMeglio:

There was more fizzle than sizzle. 

Little bang for the buck. 

A nothing burger, if you will. 

The ballyhooed grouping of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Rickie Fowler, which received a titanic amount of hype leading into the first round of The Players Championship, produced few fireworks and plenty of duds. 

Playing in front of massive galleries Thursday throughout the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, Woods offset a fist-pumping eagle on the ninth and two birdies with four bogeys and one water ball en route to an even-par 72. Phil Mickelson, wearing a button-down, long-sleeve dress shirt, dunked shots on the 16th and 17th and looked like a CEO who got beat up in the boardroom during his round of 79. And Fowler made two birdies but a water-logged double-bogey 5 on the 17th hole and signed for a 74.

I tried to get at this recently in noting that the pairings weren't doing any favors for the guys.  I'm not sure I can do the psychology of it justice, but there's something wrong when the Thursday groupings are a factor.   

But what to make of this?

“I was worried about energy this week, and I just kind of ran out at the end,” said Mickelson, who tied for fifth in last week’s Wells Fargo Championship. “But I had a lot of fun. I enjoyed being with the guys. I just had a poor finish … seven over the last five (holes), that’s the day. 

“I was concerned about this being an issue, the ability to focus and have energy at the end of the day. I sensed it Sunday at Wells Fargo. I tried to do some things this week to try to offset it, but I wasn’t able to get it done.”

If the Wells Fargo has you knackered, maybe the intensity of a Ryder Cup is more than you should take on?

But if we're going to pile on over bad excuses, then Phil's got nothing on our Jordan, who's day went like this:

Spieth’s struggles on the Stadium Course continued during the opening round of The

Players Championship, when he started his tournament by three-putting from 6 feet and subsequently rinsed three shots on his first seven holes. It added up to a 3-over 75, leaving Spieth nine shots off the early lead, but the results did little to dampen his assessment of his own play. 

“I thought I played really well. I thought I got some really - that was about as unlucky a round as I imagine I’ve probably ever had,” Spieth said. “So it’s kind of frustrating because I’m close on a course that hasn’t really yielded special results for me recently.” 

By his own account, Spieth hit only two bad shots: approaches on Nos. 11 and 16, both of which found the water and led to par-5 bogeys. But he felt he was the victim of a bad bounce when his ball rolled in the water on No. 13, and he believes he lost one shot per hole on Nos. 1-3 by missing his landing area each time by a matter of feet.

No, that's not the offending point, that's very much the nature of this golf course.  Here's the head-scratching bit:

“We’ve played in a lot of domes this year, and compared to the field that’s worse for me,” he said. “I’m trying to create big curves out here, but there’s no wind to hold the big curve against. And you have to be so straight into really tight areas out here, and it just kind of leaves me a little behind on some of the holes.”

he stunk up the joint and rinsed three balls because the conditions were too easy....  I just hope this golf thing works out for Jordan.

Business Casual, Here To Stay -  Egads, this is really goofy....  It made its debut during their nine-hole practice round at Augusta to harsh reviews, but money has now changed hands.  Geoff goes with the trusty Seinfeld reference:

Puffy Shirt Return: Phil Signs With Mizzen+Main To Allow "Move From The Board Room To The Golf Course"

But who was the low talker?  As with all urgent issues in our game, The Forecaddie is on the case:

The Forecaddie still gets a chuckle from having witnessed Phil Mickelson’s arrival for his Masters practice round with Tiger Woods.

“Really?” Woods uttered at the sight of Mickelson’s Mizzen+Main long-sleeved, logo-clad shirt. Turns out, the mostly-panned puffy “performance” wear was a trial effort and Mickelson is now signed to a long-term deal, with plans to roll out the long-sleeve beginning Thursday at The Players Championship, where Mickelson is grouped with Woods and Rickie Fowler for Rounds 1-2.

“I was waiting to find the perfect apparel partner that allowed me to move from the board room to the golf course,” Mickelson said in a groaner-filled press release. “Mizzen+Main’s performance dress shirts enable me to do that. A big part of why I’m so thrilled to partner with them is I know all my endorsement partners and the thousands of professionals that work at those companies will love this shirt for their day to day too.”

Puffy Performance Wear?  To paraphrase Tiger, Really?  Shack has this from Mr. Style (who I assume to be Marty Hackel):

Let me just note for the record that Phil has to be an especially tough fit.... personally, darts in the back seem unlikely to help. Does Mizzen + Mail also make Phil's mansiere? While Phil will provide exposure, I'm note sure it'll show the product in the best of lights....

Putting The Old in Old School - Maybe Brandel was onto something?  Forget that, but Adam Scott deployed an unusual weapon yesterday:

Scott used a 2010-model Titleist 910D3 driver on Thursday at the Players, and he

finished with a three-under 69 (the clubhouse lead is six under). He's also using a Scotty Cameron long putter, which he went back to last week at the Wells Fargo Championship. (He's just no longer allowed to anchor the putter after the latest rules change.) 

Scott hit eight of 14 fairways Thursday and averaged 297.3 yards off the tee. He finished his round with 27 putts and, currently, gained 2.266 strokes on the field on the greens. Entering this week Scott ranked 55th in Strokes Gained Off The Tee and 193th in Strokes Gained Putting.

OK, not exactly persimmon and balata as Chamblee implied, but still not something one sees every day.  But Scott, owner of one of the most drooled-over swings on Tour, is down to No. 71 in the world.  

Bandwagon, Hopped - The LPGA wants in on that team event buzz:

Something new is coming to the LPGA in 2019. The LPGA announced a new team event, the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational, will be played in July 2019. The event will

consist of 72 two-player teams will play 72 holes at Midland C.C. in Michigan. Though the tour has not yet announced how the teams will be decided, the teams will compete in two different formats—foursomes and four-ball. 

In the creation of this new event, the tour drew some inspiration from the PGA Tour's Zurich Classic, which adopted the two-player team concept in 2017. More importantly, though, the focus was to get a team event on the schedule.

The only bit at all surprising is that the gals didn't try this first, given their greater need to generate buzz.  Just as on the big-boy Tour, they're trying to recreate their team event drama, yet at it's heart it's still a stroke play event.   No word on whether there will be the inevitable walk-up music...

The Beclowning Continues -  What's in the Far Hills water supply?  First we had the USGA explain that they were just pulling our leg with that 18-hole playoff at the U.S. Open, but it turns out that a mere two holes is all that's necessary to identify the best golfer....  Noted.

Now comes this demeaning moment in qualification history:

Chris DiMarco played in eight U.S. Opens. His son, Cristian, an up-and-coming amateur, will likely have to wait a little longer to play in his first. The younger DiMarco left his

U.S. Open local qualifier at Orange Tree Golf Club in Orlando on Wednesday, after shooting an even-par 72, only to discover that he had tied for the last of five spots available for the 84-player field. When the other player (Luis Gagne, a college player at LSU who is from Costa Rica) couldn’t be located, either, officials flipped a coin to determine who would get the spot. DiMarco lost, leaving him as first alternate.

Lawyers like to say that bad cases make bad law, and that applies here, since both players failed to appear.  DiMarco had this by way of excuse:

UPDATED, 6:30 p.m.: Cristian DiMarco spoke with GolfChannel.com (his father is a commentator for the network) and explained that the previous year in the same local qualifier at the same course he had shot one-under-par 71 and was nowhere near being among those who advanced to Sectional Qualifying 

“We thought we had no chance,” Cristian said. “We thought it was a foregone conclusion.” 

A South Florida teammate called him later in the afternoon to tell him he had gotten into a playoff, but the news came too late.

The players are required to be available for a playoff, so it's like missing a tee time.   Yes, that's difficult for guys that play in the morning but, you know what else is difficult?  A U.S. Open....

A coin flip is not a good look, guys.

Have a great weekend, y'all.