Thursday Threads

Apologies for the absence of a warning about yesterday's....you know, absence.

I was at the Engineer's Member-Guest, an all-day event that always delivers.  For a few years now they've had an after-lunch Par-3 contest that's always been fun.  This year they upped their game, combining eight holes of Par-3 golf with one hole of cross country golf.  They sent us back out to play an eight-person scramble, but compensated by making the one-shotters really hard and the cross-country hole was an 850-yard par-7.  Good fun...

Tiger Scat - This has sent shock waves through the golf community:

POTOMAC, Md. — Joe LaCava showed up for work on Tuesday afternoon and found something different in the bag of his boss, Tiger Woods — a TaylorMade TP Black

Copper Ardmore 3 mallet putter.

"That was a surprise to me," LaCava said after Woods finished playing his pro-am round on the eve of the Quicken Loans National at TPC Potomac. "Whatever putter works I'm all for. I don't care what it is. If he wants to switch it up, we'll switch it up." 

Woods remains non-committal, saying, "I'm going to figure that out later," but for the past two days his Scotty Cameron Newport 2 GSS, the putter he's used in all previous 10 starts of this latest comeback and for 13 of his 14 major championship, has been benched, locked away for safe-keeping in the trunk of his rental car, LaCava said.

 Granted, it's strange to see the guy with anything other than a blade, though selective amnesia rules:

This isn't just any putter. Woods played in the pro-am with David Falk, the longtime agent for Michael Jordan, and this putter change felt like the equivalent of MJ playing hoops in tennis shoes rather than his signature high-tops. Aided by a sense of the moment that always seemed to allow him to will the ball into the hole, Woods's putter has been his sword and his shield throughout his illustrious career. How many times have we seen him strike a putt and the ball die just at the right moment and curl in? The answer is too many times to count.

Of course Tiger was a great putter, especially early in his run.  But by the mid-aughts he had become, at best, a wildly inconsistent putter.  I can remember a number of events, Baltusrol '05, Oakmont and a couple of Masters, where he was easily the best in the field tee-to-green but lost the event due to the flatstick.

But let me also suggest that this mat be a factor:

Woods, who spent last week practicing in the Bahamas, said he began experimenting with different styles and shapes of putters early last week after missing the cut at the U.S. Open. He also confirmed that this week's tournament is scheduled to be his only start before the Open Championship at Carnoustie. That makes the Quicken Loans, where Woods has won in 2009 and 2012, the perfect time to experiment with a mallet putter that he described as "not quite a heel‑shafted and not quite a plumber's neck, so kind of right in between."

His putting nosedived when he moved from Florida's Bermuda to the bent greens up North.  Perhaps he should be working on his putting in that other Albany or its equivalent.

Pot, Kettle -  John Daly is really mad at the USGA, and has gone straight to Defcon-5:

Two days after butting heads with the organization over a golf cart, John Daly is still fed

up with the USGA. But now he's suggesting it's a rift that may never end. 

On Tuesday, the two-time major champion said he would never play in another golf tournament run by the USGA, telling a reporter from USA Today Sports it was "just not worth it to me."

Daly made headlines earlier this week when he withdrew in anger from the U.S. Senior Open after being denied a medical exemption to use a golf cart during the tournament.

I don't know, that seems a bit overwrought, are you sure there isn't something else bothering you, John?

The back-and-forth seems to have angered Daly even more. He claimed Tuesday that "no 'additional information'" had been requested by the USGA. 

Daly didn't restrict his criticism to this specific incident. He also criticized their handling of Shinnecock Hills during the U.S. Open, saying, "It just seems like something happens every year they host an event that looks bad on them. They just never seem to learn from their mistakes," according to USA Today Sports' report.

Fair enough, John.  But you know when else something always happens?  Yeah, when you're in the field... 

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP)  John Daly has been suspended five times and cited 21 times for not giving his best effort, according to a 456-page rap sheet kept by the PGA Tour that is now public record because of libel lawsuit Daly failed to win. 

The Florida Times-Union reported Tuesday on Daly's disciplinary file, which the tour had to give Morris Publishing Co. during Daly's libel lawsuit against a columnist who once worked for the newspaper. The Times-Union is part of the Morris group. 

The lawsuit was dismissed in March 29. 

The disciplinary file grew to 456 pages over 18 years of Daly's career, starting in April 1991 when the tour said Daly cursed a playing partner and ending in the fall of 2008, when Daly was suspended for six months. 

The two-time major champion was placed on probation six times, ordered to go to counseling or alcohol rehab seven times, cited for conduct unbecoming a professional 11 times and fined nearly $100,000, according to the file. 

Most of the incidents have been widely reported, such as Daly trashing a hotel room in 1997 during The Players Championship or getting into a scuffle at Firestone with a 62-year-old man whose son, Jeff Roth, said Daly had hit into him at the World Series of Golf. Even so, the PGA Tour does not disclose its discipline, and Daly usually makes for good reading.

 We all remain so terribly interested in John's view of the failures of others....

No Respect - Bookmaker odds on golf are always, well, odd, but this is at least also humorous:

John Smoltz told us in a recent Golf Digest Podcast that the nerves he experienced during this year's U.S. Senior Open qualifier were unlike anything he ever had to deal

with during his Hall-of-Fame career as a pitcher. So we're pretty sure he'll be feeling a lot of pressure come Thursday when he competes in his first major (golf) championship. But Smoltz should relax, because unlike when he used to take the mound, no one is expecting much when he arrives at the Broadmoor's first tee. 

Las Vegas Westgate Superbook golf oddsmaker Jeff Sherman released a few betting lines ahead of the U.S. Senior Open and to say Smoltz is a long shot would be an insult to long shots. Smoltz has been listed at 5,000-to-1 odds to win the event. Smoltz is 10/1 to make the cut, and -2000 (Risk $2,000 to win $100) to miss the weekend. Finally, his over/under for first-round score has been set at 82.5.

What if I want to short him?  His qualifying is a great story, so let's hope he arranged some fun practice rounds and enjoys his week.  

Feherty in Full -  John Feinstein has a long feature on the Ulsterman that's well worth your time, though you might want to have a supply of Kleenex nearby.  I'm going to elide the pathos and instead excerpt some of the fun stuff, including this bit on how the CBS marraige was brokered:

Then, Anita and CBS came into his life—specifically, in the case of CBS, Gary McCord. The two men had never met, but McCord was in the locker room during an opening-

round rain delay at The International in 1995. He was there to find players who would come on-camera and kill time for USA, which had the Thursday-Friday cable rights. 

"I was there for a while," says McCord, now one of Feherty's closest friends. "David was in there telling stories. I knew who he was but didn't know him. People were falling over laughing while he talked. When we went off-air I said to him, 'You ever do any TV?' He said no. I said, 'Would you like to?' He said, "I don't know.' I said, 'Well, if you want to, I'll be in the tower at 15 tomorrow from 2-5, and if you want to, come on up there.' I did it as much to keep myself from getting bored because I figured if I had someone to listen to, I'd have to pay attention." 

The next day, when he got to the tower, McCord told longtime CBS golf producer Frank Chirkinian that he'd invited Feherty. 

"What?" Chirkinian screamed into McCord's headset. "No way. No way you two f------ guys are going to be together on-air." 

Chirkinian knew Feherty's reputation for blunt humor. 

McCord didn't blink. "First, it was cable, not the network," he says. "It was Friday afternoon, small audience. Frank liked to yell and grumble; that's what he did. Plus, I didn't even know if David would show." 

Feherty showed. And he blew McCord away. "He just went to places with his answers to questions I never imagined anyone could go," McCord says. "As we walked down the steps from the tower, I said to him, 'This is what you're going to be doing next.' I knew he wasn't playing well and was going to need something soon. So, I said, 'When the time comes, please call us.' As in CBS, not me."

Oh, and John opens his piece with this Tiger anecdote:

It's a rainy night in Georgia, and David Feherty is on fire. 

He has been on stage at Atlanta Symphony Hall for almost two hours, and those in the audience of about 1,200 have only stopped laughing when one of his stories brings them to tears of hysteria. 

"Tiger Woods is funnier than people know," Feherty says at one point. "When I was walking with him for CBS, he used to pull the brim of his hat down low so the cameras couldn't pick up what he was saying—he was convinced everyone watching could read lips. 

"One day he says to me, 'Hey, Farty,'—that's what he called me—'do you know what you call a black guy flying an airplane?' 

"I said, 'No, what?' 

"And he said, 'A pilot, you f------ racist.' "

How about a Cabelasian flying an airplane?

Oxymoron Alert -  Shane Ryan puts in a lot of effort on this:

Introducing: The Nondescript PGA Tour Excellence Award

There was a time when Tour players seemed indistinguishable from each other, though hasn't that moment passed?

The criteria are suitably exacting:

1. He must be very good during that season, finishing near the top of the FedEx Cup list, missing very few cuts and threatening to win on numerous occasions.

The poster child.

2. He must not actually win, or if he does, it must be a fall event or a really, really minor regular event. Should he win a marquee PGA Tour event, a WGC or, god forbid, a major, that’s instant disqualification.

3. He must be only moderately familiar to a casual golf follower, and essentially unknown to dip-in, “majors and Players Championship only” fans. He can’t be one of the longest hitters, or noticeably daring around the greens, and nobody must have ever called him a “risk-taker.”

4. He must have no attendant hype—this award is for journeymen, not future stars or college wunderkinds.

5. He must not have any personality traits that would allow him to be considered “larger-than-life” or even “quirky” or “noticeable.” So, for example, someone like Bryson DeChambeau would fail to qualify because he’s a bona fide eccentric who uses protractors and quotes Enrico Fermi if you ask him about his swing.

6. He must have no dominant on-course emotion, at least to the naked eye. This award isn’t fit for someone who is angry, or funny, or obviously competitive. Don’t get me wrong: These qualities can be attributed to him by other players, but that attribution has to come in sentences like, “people don’t understand how competitive _______ really is. He may look pretty calm, but he’s a silent killer.” In other words, if you took someone like Jon Rahm or Patrick Reed and removed all their wins, they’d be eliminated from contention by virtue of the fact that they have murder in their eyes.

7. When the media presses him for personal information, the piece of trivia he offers has to be something along the lines of “I love to boat.”

Shane retroactively awards the prestigious title for recent years, and then presents the 2018 nominees:

Really, it's an honor just to be nominated....

Yeah, it's mildly amusing, but all of those guys are really good.  It's just become so damn difficult to win out there...

See y'all tomorrow.