Your Friday Frisson

They're in short sleeves in Gullane, and torching the place.  

Dispatches From Wheaton, IL - With Fox unable or unwilling to break into their weekday lineup, the ladies are playing in a bubble:

WHEATON, Ill. – Laura Davies’ 10-foot eagle putt on the last hole at Chicago Golf Club did not ease the pain of England’s World Cup loss. Hoisting the trophy at the inaugural

U.S. Senior Women’s Open, however, would surely do the trick. Davies’ 2-under 71 puts her one back of Elaine Crosby, a 60-year-old from Michigan who played on the LPGA from 1985 to 2000. 

Trish Johnson, winner of the inaugural Senior LPGA Championship, joins Davies and Liselotte Neumann at 2 under. Helen Alfredsson (1 under) rounds out the fivesome who broke par on Day 1. 

“You stand on the tee and you think, right, you can take this place apart,” said Davies, “but you know that’s not actually going to happen because the tees are generous … they let you get that, and then your second shot has to be in the right quadrant of the green because they’re big, square-ish greens.” 

Putting mired what could’ve been a low round for the World Golf Hall of Famer. She three-putted once from 4 feet and again from 10 feet.

From tee-to-green, she's very much Dame Laura....  On the short grass, alas, more of a commoner....

Also in the field is Golf Channel analyst Kay Cockerill, whose day started with this:

Golf Channel reporter Kay Cockerill overcame a serious case of the nerves to card a 1-over 74 in her first tournament (outside of a U.S. Women’s Open qualifier) since 1997. 

While Cockerill tried to get down some breakfast, she watched a six-minute video from Golf Channel co-workers – from engineers to commentators to producers – wishing her luck. 

“I was literally going back and forth between laughing and crying,” she said. 

Cockerill’s hands were shaking early, but a birdie on her second hole (No. 11) helped to settle her down.

Big deal, I go back and forth between laughing and crying on most Par-4's....

This lady may have lost her wedge, but the sense of humor seems intact:

JoAnne Carner, who striped the first tee shot at 7 a.m. to get the championship underway, shot her age – 79 – on the strength of a back-nine 1-under 36. Carner hadn’t walked 18 holes since 2004. When a USGA official asked if she planned to catch some action later in the day, Carner smiled and said “That’s the funniest.”

It's just good to see these ladies again.... 

You might also enjoy this aerial view of Chicago Golf Club.  It's a stunningly flat property, not especially suited to our game.  

Dispatches from Gullane Hill -  Luke List is leading, but the entire field is seemingly under par:

Luke List is a player known for possessing plenty of firepower, and he showed it

Thursday. 

The 33-year-old made nine birdies in the opening round of the Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open to fire a 7-under 63 and take a one-shot lead over five players. 

List got it going early with four straight birdies from Nos. 3-6, and four more birdies from Nos. 11-15 solidified his lead score of 63. This is only the seventh career European Tour start for List, who has a best showing of T-36 in those events.

A second straight week of Chamber of Commerce weather, that's gotta be a first.  

As I've been typing, I've been treated to the show of Patrick Reed taking three to extricate himself from a greenside bunker.... I'm sure he's oh so glad he came over a week early....

The Scottish press got first crack at the smartest guy in golf, who seems to be dealing with some actual contrition:

Phil Mickelson has had nearly a month to reflect on the rules incident heard 'round the world at the U.S. Open, when he hit a moving ball on the 13th green at Shinnecock, and

he feels remorse for the intense backlash he received not only for the act itself, but also his cavalier attitude about it afterward. 

"I’ve had a rough month," he told the media after firing a first-round 70 in the Scottish Open. "I haven’t been my best. So I’m working at trying to fix that. I made a big mistake [at the US Open] and I wish I could take it back, but I can’t. There’s not much I can do about it now other than just try to act a little better. The backlash is my own fault."

"Not only was I not great on the course – I was not great after the round, either," Mickelson continued. "So it was just not a great day, and it was my birthday. So I tend to do dumb stuff on my birthday, too."

So Phil, what's your take-away from this?  I know, who am I kidding.

Dispatches From Quad Cities - First question: Is Wheatcroft the leader or one of the Quad Cities?

This is about the only newsworthy bit:

Bryson DeChambeau's John Deere title defense ended after only 15 holes on Thursday,

when he was forced to withdraw with a shoulder injury. 

DeChambeau received treatment on his right shoulder and then spoke with Golf Channel's Chantel McCabe. 

"They said there was some instability in the joint," DeChambeau said. "On 2, I hit the shot out of the rough on the right, and I just didn't feel right after that. I probably overloaded the muscle, my [deltoid], and that's something I gotta work on in the future, to get a little stronger so that stuff doesn't happen." 

"I've just got to take care of my body a little better," DeChambeau concluded.

As for his Open Championship prospects, DeChambeau is unsure at this point.

Will the condition become known as "Protractor Shoulder"?

Dispatches From The Soon-To-Be Loneliest Man in Golf -  Earlier this week, Alan Shipnuck was sharing some of the relationship he's developed with Tour professionals, both male and female.  Ironically, that's followed by this item, which its hard to imagine will help him score interviews looking forward:

The wimpification of golf: From pally Tour pros to foolproof equipment, today's game has gone soft

Here's the premise:

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but golf is going soft. Quite literally, as my plush FootJoy socks now come emblazoned with an L and an R, lest I can't figure it out on my own. The evidence is elsewhere in my golfing life: hybrids instead of long-irons; a laser

to gauge yardages so I no longer have to schlep to a sprinkler head; balls that fly forever but refuse to be scuffed, no matter how thin I catch my 9-iron; performance fabrics to spare me my own sweat. An 18-hole slog from the tips was the old standard, carrying my bag every step of the way. Now even the ruling bodies are encouraging me to tee it forward and just play nine.

As with many things in golf, the pro game sets the tone. It has even infected the caddies, who now get valet parking at some tournaments, for Pete's sake! Green reading was once a dark art, but every answer can now be found in those infernal yardage books, which have as many pages as a Tolstoy novel and are read at a similar pace. Having a good head of hair used to be a job requirement, but these days Tour caddies are paid to wear logoed caps. Even so, the most famous looper of recent times, Jim "Bones" Mackay, put down the bag in favor of an even cushier TV gig. Maybe he got tired of the pronoun "we"; Tour players now reflexively use it to talk about their "team." It sounds inclusive but really it's a shirking of the rugged individualism that made golf great. Wedidn't slice a drive off a hospitality tent on the 72nd hole to lose the U.S. Open...you did, pal.

Gee, who is he referencing with that last bit?   Must have been the birthday boy....

But he does name actual names, which is where it gets fun:

Given how soft players have become, it's surprising that Charmin isn't the official sponsor of the PGA Tour. At this year's Wells Fargo Championship, Bob Estes withdrew due to allergies. I like Estes and don't want to minimize his suffering, but Ray Floyd would've cut off his nose with a 1-iron before W/D'ing due to the sniffles. Similarly, do you think Ben F'ing Hogan would've worn shorts during practice rounds? Hubert Green won the 1977 U.S. Open playing through a death threat, and Jack Nicklaus spent years being heckled as Fat Jack by Arnie's Army, but now every noisy fan is in danger of getting tossed by a touchy-feely Tour pro. They are even bigger snowflakes on Twitter: Billy Horschel and Ian Poulter each has more blocks than Patrick Ewing.

Billy Ho and Poults?  Any body more, you know, popular?

Warriors from the days of yore were masters of gamesmanship who often played in stony silence. Now, the players vacation together and post cutesy photos about it on social media. Nick Faldo won the Claret Jug three times but refused to take so much as one drink out of it, so deep was his reverence. There isn't an important trophy Rickie Fowler hasn't imbibed from, even if none of them are his. The chumminess plays out between the ropes: there is currently an epidemic on Tour of "backstopping," whereby players don't mark their ball on the green if it's in a spot that might help slow down a competitor's ensuing, misplayed shot. I'm stymied by the very thought of it.

Alan, you might want to pull out that flak jacket for your next pressroom appearance....

Dispatches From Carnoustie -  Via Shack, remembrances of Hogan's win there in 1953:

Including a cameo from Bobby Locke. 

This, narrated by Jim Huber, is good as well:

You'll no doubt tire of hearing about Hogan and the 6th hole, but it's a daunting tee shot.  More importantly, Hogan wasn't physically able to make that trip more than the once, but he made the most of it.

But what to make of this curious piece at Golf Digest?

The Problem with Hogan 

Revisiting the Hogan mystique and what it means to be a man.

Say what?  I'm not one that thinks professional athletes have much to teach us about life, but I do like bad pop psychology.

Golf prides itself on its life lessons. The game comes with a set of rules, a tribe and

village elders. From role models like Hogan, boys can learn to be men (something many aren't learning at home: one in three American kids, like the teenage Hogan, don't live with their dad). They learn that the game is hard, and rewards are few. Good bounces can come disguised as bad bounces, and vice versa. Play the ball as it lies. No one saw you inadvertently break a rule? Call a penalty on yourself. Take dead aim. Don't complain; don't explain. Got a problem? Fix it. "Dig it out of the dirt." 

Yet Hogan was famously taciturn and cold. He eschewed small talk or, more accurately, talk. He hated giving interviews. He could stop a young autograph hunter in his tracks with an icy stare. As a kid, Hogan hovered like a disapproving eminence grise over my fledgling attempts to become a grown-up. He seemed like every hard-ass teacher I'd ever had at school, every disapproving ex-military British golf-club secretary who ever upbraided me and my friends for some absurdly petty transgression, every unnamed Victorian ancestor who peered unsmilingly out from old photograph albums. I read in one of Jack Nicklaus' autobiographies that he liked Hogan because he wasn't effusive, and in Nicklaus' view, effusiveness was bad. My ensuing monosyllabic attempt to be uneffusive was short-lived.

The author seems surprised that, having lived a hardscrabble life and possibly witnessed his father's suicide, Hogan might be  a tad taciturn....  Shocking, I know.

Perhaps Jack liked Hogan because he was authentic....  Read it if you must, but it seems to me to be profoundly silly.

Lastly, Alex Myers with a well-argued piece on a certain player's prospects:

Tiger Woods' winless drought in major championships has officially passed the decade mark, something unfathomable even five years ago when Woods resumed the top spot in the Official World Golf Ranking during his most recent PGA Tour Player of the Year

campaign. Now 42 and having spent much of the time between that epic playoff victory at the 2008 U.S. Openbattling injuries, there's a distinct possibility Woods will finish his career with the 14 major titles he claimed by 32. But based on the golf he's displayed during his latest comeback, Tiger certainly has the potential to win another major (That's an actual major and not some big-money, made-for-TV match against Phil Mickelson). And his best chances to accomplish this will come at the Open Championship. Here are seven reasons why.

1. Tiger’s love of links golf: Every year golfers at the Open Championship wax poetic about their love of links golf. For many, it’s simply lip service, but not for Tiger, who genuinely enjoys the different challenges presented at golf's oldest major.

On the one hand, I always liked his chances best here and at Shinny....  But, given his struggles to finish off rounds on Thursday, a major seems to be a big ask.

That'll have to do for now... See you Monday.