Lots to cover, so without further ado...
We'll Always Have Avenel - Is this a crazy game, or what? A guy struggles for years without a win, and when he does finally break through it's by a touchdown and two-point conversion:
Francesco Molinari delivered a record performance to win the final edition of the Quicken Loans National.
Molinari holed a 50-foot eagle putt to start the back nine, and he never stopped until he turned the final round into a runaway Sunday at the TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm. The Italian closed with an 8-under 62 for an eight-shot victory, matching the largest margin this year on the PGA Tour.
Combined with Alex Noren's comeback win in Paris, a good week for the Euros.... Anyone thinking the Ryder Cup will be a walkover, is hereby put on notice.
Tiger Scat - That guy that finished T4 reminded me of someone who used to play on Tour.... What was his name again?
John Feinstein takes a shot at untangling the implications for the event, which is DOA, and its host:
In all, Molinari’s sparkling round was the highlight of an otherwise overheated, dreary week. Tiger Woods Foundation officials kept insisting that the tournament wasn’t dead inWashington, that they were still searching for a sponsor to replace Quicken Loans, which is taking its $8 million annual sponsorship to Detroit next year.
Rumors have flown that the tour might give the Woods people a fall slot next year, but the chances that Woods would want to be involved with a second-tier tour event that isn’t on network TV and goes up against the NFL are between slim and none, and slim was seen headed out of town soon after Molinari accepted the tournament’s 12th and final winner’s trophy.
Another rumor that might be more believable is that Woods is planning to put on some kind of exhibition event. That would cost a sponsor far less money and could be played early in a week over one or two days. Woods could undoubtedly round up a small group of players, hand them an appearance fee and Voila! save some face. Whether he and his agent Mark Steinberg want to make that sort of effort given that the Woods Foundation now runs the Los Angeles tournament at Riviera in February and the lucrative exhibition in the Bahamas in December, remains to be seen.
Guys, Tiger already has an exhibition, as well as being the host in LA. Seems like enough, no?
Left unsaid is whether Tiger's performance as sponsor has others clamoring to jump in bed with him. From my vantage point, he's never seemed overly concerned about his sponsors after the check has cleared.
The Tour Confidential panel leads yet again with The Striped One:
1. It was a little bit of good and a little bit of not so good for Tiger Woods at the Quicken Loans National. Woods shot a four-under 66 on Sunday, which wasn't near enough to catch Francesco Molinari but still resulted in a T4 finish in his final startbefore the British Open. Woods's downfall his last few events has been his putter, and he made a well-publicized switch to a TaylorMade Ardmore 3 mallet for the week. He finished seventh in Strokes Gained: Putting, yet dead last among those who made the cut in putting inside 10 feet. What stat is more meaningful to you? And are you taking the optimist or pessimist point of view regarding Woods's form, and future, on the greens?
Michael Bamberger: Open golf is not about putting. It's about iron control, through the green. He's in good shape to contend. Winning is another question.
Josh Sens: It's easy to go down the rabbit hole parsing stats. More importantly, I think, is that it's been a good long time since Tiger has managed to put together four solid rounds at the events that matter most. That's the sort of thing that, like putting, will get in your head, and it does not bode well for Carnoustie.
Yeah, but.... In many ways an Open Championship should suit his game, but he hasn't been able to finish off a single round this year. On this one, though, I think Mr. Shipnuck has struck the right balance:
Alan Shipnuck: By any objective measure, Tiger's season has been a rousing success. He's stayed healthy, played some intermittently stellar golf and even contended a coupla times. That's all we could have asked for given where he's been. But the hype is overwhelming every time he tees it up and we still all remember how special peak Tiger was — these two factors warp every perspective. I'm not optimistic or pessimistic — I'm content to sit back and see what happens.
He was the greatest closer ever in our game, until Y.E. Yang.....
Ladies Daze - A bit of a strange week in Chicago for the gals:
KILDEER, Ill. (AP) — Sung Hyun Park beat So Yeon Ryu on the second hole of a playoff Sunday in the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship for her second major championship.
After a brief rain delay on the par-4 16th hole at Kemper Lakes, Ryu’s birdie try rolled past, and Park finished off her South Korean compatriot with a 10-footer. Park raised her arms and placed her hands on her head before hugging her caddie and wiping away tears.
Park is the next big thing in women's golf, unfortunate due to the inevitable name confusion. The fact of the matter is the Ryu had the event under lock and key, until dousing her tee ball on No. 17.
The LPGA put a lot of money into making us aware that It's Different Out Here™, but is that really the case?
On Friday at the KPMG Women's PGA Championship, anger over a bad shot began a series of events that led to veteran Lee-Anne Pace’s disqualification from thetournament.
It all started eight holes into her round Friday at Kemper Lakes Golf Club. Pace shanked a wedge shot, and the disappointment got the best of her, causing her to slam the offending club into a hazard stake.
Pace didn't realize at the time that the stake had damaged the hosel of her club. It was only after using the wedge again a few holes later in the round that Pace discovered the problem. She quickly called in a Rules official, and tournament officials encouraged her to continue playing while they reviewed the situation.
Then on Sunday....
We'll Always Have Paris - Alistair Tait with an noteworthy take on the Ryder Cup venue:
The HNA French Open allowed a sneak preview of how Le Golf National will play when the match gets under way Sept. 28. Narrow fairways and deep rough took driver out of the hands of the bigger hitters and out a premium on accuracy, which favors Europe.
“The old theory is tight and scruffy,” said Graeme McDowell, one of Bjorn’s five vice captains and a two-time French Open winner. “I paced off the width of the seventh fairway at 270 yards off the tee, and it was only 18 yards wide.
“They (the U.S.) set their courses up wide with semi-rough and middle-of-the-green pins for a birdie fest. We always like to set it up a little tighter and a little tougher and maybe not having the greens quite as fast. Does it (Le Golf National) favor our guys more than theirs? We think it does.”
Of course you do, it's your job. Except for the slow greens, it sounds like a Tom Meeks set-up at Oak Hill.... Alas, where's Andy North when we need him most.
Notice how this guy always works Medinah into the conversation:
Ian Poulter is a five-time Ryder Cupper who should play in this year’s match. He’s played in 13 French Opens and says the golf course is as tight as it’s ever been.“The fairways are slightly narrower,” he said. “I think the setup needs to be tight in our favor.
“If you look at how they’ve set their courses up, Medinah was no rough. Hazeltine was no rough. They prefer to play the birdie percentage game. They would have done the math equation that they probably make more birdies than we do from a power perspective.
“I’m not hitting driver on a lot of these holes, and I would be average in the field in terms of length. They (the longer American players) will be nudging irons around the golf course.”
I'm old enough to remember when our guys were stumped by Seve's set-up at Valderama, which we'll have to hope isn't repeated. Encouragingly, this guy had a decent week, and also got up-and-in from a bridge, though how his ball got there remains a mystery.
Anybody thinking this will be easy should stay home.
Ground Control to.... - You may not love Fox, but at least they don't employ Chris Berman.... I actually saw quite a bit of this, at least until the Yankees started taking BP against David Price:
With déjà vu washing over him on a windy and dry afternoon, David Toms won the 39thU.S. Senior Open Sunday at The Broadmoor with a combination of punctilious ball-striking, patience and putting – the very things he did so well in a solid PGA Tour career accented by his 2001 PGA Championship victory.
“My emotions are all over the place,” said the Louisiana native, who won for the first time since the 2011 Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial, the last of his 13 tour titles. “It was just so hard. When you haven’t done it in a while, it’s pretty brutal. And I’m just glad I got it done.”
Toms, 51, emerged from a day-long scuffle with the intransigent East Course and a handful of determined adversaries – midway through the back nine he was part of a five-man logjam at the top – to become the eighth player to make the Senior Open his first victory on the Champions Tour. And he did it with a series of clutch shots down the stretch, none more important than the 16-footer for birdie at the par-3 16th that gave him the lead and the 20-foot par putt at the intimidating par-4 17th that helped preserve it.
Though even Toms, owner of a silky smooth putting stroke, has resorted to a version of the claw.
Most interesting, as relates to the round bellies, is Eamon Lynch's recent epiphany:
The number that best defines John Daly’s career depends largely upon whom you ask. His many fans might offer “302” – Daly’s average driving distance in 1997, when hebecame the first man on the PGA Tour to break that now quaint 300-yard barrier. Or “5,” for his Tour wins, a meager tally given his enormous talent. Perhaps even “2,” for the major victories that place him in rarified company.
For me, the telling number is “48.” That’s how many times Daly has withdrawn from PGA Tour-sanctioned events during his uneven career.
Check that.
It’s now “49” after his sulky exit from last week’s U.S. Senior Open. That figure omits the eight DQ’s he’s racked up, or his consistently dominating performance in the strokes gained half-hearted effort category.
I'd have gone with 21, the number of times that Daly has been fined for the failure to give maximum effort.... But this is a subject upon which reasonable men can disagree.
The more pressing issue is, where ya been, Eamon? He's been dogging it for decades. There's comedy gold to be found, including this back story on the source of the knee issues:
Daly bolted from the Senior Open when the U.S. Golf Association denied his request to use a cart during play. He’d asked for wheels owing to a knee injury he suffered while dodging a car that struck his RV in the parking lot of an Augusta Hooters, where he was hawking merchandise during the Masters, a tournament he hasn’t actually played in a dozen years.
That qualifies as too good to fact check.... And while he doesn't appear to be Jewish, he's all over the chutzpah thing:
“It’s my career they’re screwing around with here,” Daly continued, flaunting a commendable capacity for selective amnesia.
Daly subsequently announced he’ll never play in another USGA tournament, a declaration that stunned the blazer brigade, who thought he had long ago stopped competing in their events. After all, Daly also WD’d from last year’s Senior Open with a shoulder injury. He did play in 2016, his 70-81 being the first rounds he’s played in a USGA tournament since 2005. He’s signed for just 11 rounds in USGA competition this century.
Why the odd number? U.S. Open, Pebble Beach, 2000, 83, WD.
Please don't slam the door on your way out....
What's His View on Backstopping? - I like the cut of this guy's jib:
In the final round of the Quicken Loans National, Dahmen was paired with Sung Kang. On the 10th hole at TPC Potomac, Kang's second shot found the hazard. What followedwas a bizarre, rarely-seen sequence on tour.
Kang believed his ball crossed the hazard, giving him a drop on the side of the hazard closer to the hole. Dahmen disputed the account, asserting Kang's ball failed to cross. The argument continued for so long that the group behind the duo, Ben Crane and Ryan Palmer, played through.
A rules official eventually sided with Kang, as the South Korean player was allowed to take a drop on the side of the hazard closer to the hole. He would save par on the 10th and turned in a six-under 64, a score that translated to a T-3 finish that earned him an invite to the 2018 Open Championship.
Dahmen, however, continued to feel Kang's drop was unjust, airing his grievances on Twitter Sunday night.
When asked why Palmer and Crane played through, Dahmen was blunt: "Kang cheated. He took a bad drop from a hazard. I argued until I was blue. I lost."
I think he has squandered what little chance he had of an invite to #SB2K2019, but at least he understands his obligation to protect the field.
And yeah, I'd have given up the fight after the rules official sided with Kang... Also noted is the memories this brings of Tiger's drive on No. 14 at Sawgrass in 2013.... Good times!
Venue News - A couple of notes from over the weekend. First, send your requests for tickets and clubhouse passes to friend of the blog Mark W.:
Historic Baltusrol Golf Club has already hosted a huge amount of prestigious golf events, and now it's getting two more to add to its resume.
The PGA of America announced on Saturday that the 2023 KPMG Women's PGA Championship will be held at Baltusrol, as well as the 2029 PGA Championship on the men's side.
Baltusrol, located in Springfield, N.J., previously hosted one other women's major, the 1961 U.S. Women's Open won by World Golf Hall of Fame member Mickey Wright.
A total of seven U.S. Opens have been played at the club, and two recent PGA Championships in 2005 and 2016. Phil Mickelson captured his only PGA title there in the 2005 event. The club has also played host to four U.S. Amateurs, the most recent in 2000.
I wonder if anyone gave any thought to having the Women's Open on their Upper Course. It's built on the more interesting portion of their property, and features the more interesting greens.
Shack notes that the PGA's grasp of PR 101 seems lacking:
I'm fairly certainly a Saturday in the summertime is the only opportunity more likely to get something less notice than a Friday evening in summertime.
I assume it was dropped then to coincide with the ladies' event in Chicago, but still odd.
The Forecaddie continues to break news, with this undereported item:
With Rolex Series backing and a prime date, the event should be fine for years to come.But The Man Out Front grew a wee bit concerned when hearing about the upcoming announcement of a two-year deal to take the tournament to East Lothian’s The Renaissance Club.
While TMOF has nothing against the ultra-private Tom Doak design, it’s fairly light on the kind of links characteristics players will see this year at Gullane or other venues played since the tournament moved from Loch Lomond.
The news is also a bit deflating given the European Tour’s consideration of Cruden Bay as the 2019 venue, which might have been one of the boldest venue selections in professional golf history.
Yeah, that Cruden Bay tease was intriguing.... Such a quirky course, which includes an actual blind Par-3.... I was dying to see how the modern pampered pro would respond to that.
I'm happy for the chance to see this venue, and the fact that it's Links Lite might not be as the negative that TMOF sees it as. I love the linksapalooza that's been created, but I can see where the players might be concerned. If you get a tough week of weather, it can easily rob you of your will to live.... That's why venues such as Castle Stuart have worked just fine.
That's more than enough for you ungrateful wretches. Perhaps more tomorrow....
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