Midweek Musings

My golf has been cancelled, so we can cover anything you guys would like to discuss....  Anyone?  Bueller?

Bellerive Leftovers - Alan Shipnuck has some PGA-related thoughts from his weekly mailbag, including this opener:

Is Brooks Koepka a Hall of Famer if he never touches a club again? -@JacobEmert 

Okay, let’s say tomorrow he’s squatting 900 lbs. in the gym and tears every tendon in his body, ending his career. I think he gets in. Obviously you’d like to see more of a body of work on the PGA Tour but let us not forget that Koepka, 28, has already won tournaments in Turkey, Japan, Italy, Spain and Scotland, thanks to his formative years on the Challenge and European tours. Back-to-back U.S. Opens is no joke and then on top of that you throw in an overpowering PGA win against a glittering leaderboard. In recent years the Hall has let in Fred Couples and Tom Kite, who across long careers won only one measly major apiece. On that basis how could you keep out Koepka?

Not to mention Monty, with that goose egg.  Obviously Alan has the same concern about Brooksie as your humble blogger, so let's hope he prudently limits his squats to, say, 800 lbs.

This sort of musing doesn't interest me all that much:

If DJ wins 35 times with three Grand Slam victories, and BK finishes with 15 wins and five Slams, which is a better career? -Sujeet (@sindap) 

These are pretty good projections but we can do a thought-experiment based on their careers right now. Dustin has 19 career Tour wins compared to Koepka’s four. How many of Johnson’s wins can you name without looking besides the U.S. Open at Oakmont? Maybe Kapalua this year because he hit, ahem, the greatest shot in golf history. He’s won a few times at Pebble but what were those years again? Maybe Doral, maybe Mexico City, but it’s already getting difficult. Major championship victories are so indelible and so much more important in assessing a career. To win 35 events would be an incredible achievement and make Dustin one of the most prolific winners in Tour history. But it would be more impressive to win as many majors as Seve and Lord Byron and Phil the Thrill.

The enigma that is DJ remains of interest, just not the number-of-angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin bit.  We always hear after a player breaks through for his first major that the floodgates will open, but DJ and Sergio, as an example, seem to be heading the opposite direction.  DJ has developed a pattern of positioning himself well at majors, then sucking on the weekends....  Hard to figure what's going on with the guy, who not that long ago was considered too stupid to feel pressure.

This is pretty droll, I think you'll agree:

On the heels of the pandemonium of the PGA and with the Ryder Cup looming on the horizon, does anything in golf feel more brittle than the playoffs? -@Lou_TireWorld 

Only Brooks’s ego.

Good one, Alan, though we know it's a bit personal between you two kids.  The questioner's point is made by the fact that the only interest to be derived from these events are in the auditions for captain's picks....

This is a strange story from Shane Lowry, no?

Sunday’s frenetic back nine at the PGA Championship hit a sudden slow point when the

pairing of Shane Lowry and Justin Thomas reached the 16th green. Lowry, 10 under at the time, tugged his tee shot left at the par 3, settling near a camera tower. 

But Lowry felt the rules officials that came in bungled the entire situation. 

“I think the referee didn’t have the balls to make a decision there and, if he did, I would have had an easier shot,” Lowry told the Irish Times. “If you put [top European tour rules official] John Paramor or any of the good referees out there, he would have given me full relief.” 

Lowry said he grew conscious of the time it was taking for the officials to make a ruling, knowing he was holding up Thomas as well as the rest of the contenders behind them. “He wouldn’t make a decision,” Lowry said. “The other referee said, ‘It is your decision’. I said, ‘Do you know what? I’m just going to play’. I didn’t want to wait around any longer.”

On the one hand he made a great four, so perhaps it didn't affect the outcome.  On the other hand, they have one job.....  Although we don't see a lot of dismissive comments regarding testicular capacity in our game, so perhaps we should just enjoy that.

PGA Leftovers, Tiger Edition - Via Dave Shedloski, an interesting take on Tiger's Sunday charge from John Huggan:

I'm not sure I can add much here, as John's point logically applies largely to his front nine when he missed all seven fairways.  I picked him up on the ninth green, so you're on your own here.

Shipnuck had a couple of Tiger questions as well, including this:

So the breathless TV talkers were saying Tiger’s comeback is the biggest in the history of sports. I’m not sure it’s even the biggest in golf (see: Hogan). Where do you rank it? #AskAlan -David (@Daver40)

It’s funny that golf now has, potentially, the two biggest comeback stories in all of sports. There is zero question Hogan’s physical injuries were far more severe than the back maladies Tiger has suffered. It’s not even close. But Hogan was lionized at every step of his comeback. Let us not forget Tiger has lived through the most severe public shaming in the Internet age. Just as he had put that behind him he suffered two more nightmare humiliations with the dashcam video of his DUI and his private parts going public on the world wide web. It’s impossible to overstate the damage this has done, metaphysically. And it’s hard to imagine Hogan could have survived the intensity of the 24-hour news cycle that Woods lives in. So it’s really hard to say one comeback is bigger than the other. Both are amazing.

I get why he considers Hogan's injuries more serious, though anyone that's ever had a balky back knows how debilitating that can be.  But let me just interject this from a Sir Nick interview with Dan Patrick:

“What he’s been able to do is, it’s unbelievable, remarkable,” Faldo told Patrick. “To go from a frozen back—I know he whispered to another Masters champion two Masters dinners ago ‘I’m done. I won’t play golf again,’ and here we are, 18 months later...”

Like all of us, Patrick was curious as to who Woods whispered to, and asked Faldo if it was him. 

“No, I won’t mention the name, but he’s a Masters champion. He said ‘I’m done, my back is done.’ He was in agony, he was in pain, the pain down his legs, there was nothing enjoyable. He couldn’t move.”

I just see little to be gained from making recoveries a competitive event....

Ryder Cup Notes -  Yesterday we dealt with the U.S. Team, so today let's have a gander at the Euros.  Their automatic qualifying is not concluded, it runs through Labor Day weekend, the eight automatic qualifiers would be:

Molinari

Rose 

Fleetwood 

Hatton

McIlroy

Rahm

Poulter

Noren

Not a whole lot of surprises there....  and while Rory's form has to be of concern, we've got some of those on our side as well.

 Back to Shipnuck's take on the state of play for the Euros:

We’ve heard your U.S. Ryder Cup thoughts. So who do you think gets picked to round out the Euro side (assuming current top 8 guys remain)? -@ScottMichaux

It’s a strong crew but features four rookies. Given his Ryder Cup record and overall presence, Henrik Stenson is a sure thing for a pick, even though his play in 2018 has been only so-so by his lofty standards. Paul Casey is also a lock — he’s been in fine form all season. So now we’re down to two spots. Cap. Bjorn’s biggest dilemma is what to do about Sergio Garcia, who has been a European stalwart for two decades. Quite simply, Garcia has been awful in 2018: missed cuts in 8 of his last 10 starts on the PGA Tour, including all four major championships, though Sergio is quick to point out that five of those M/Cs were by one stroke. He has always found a way to peak for the Cup — can he do it again?

The competition for his spot comes from two would-be Ryder rookies, Russell Knox and Thorbjorn Olesen, both of whom have had very strong summers, including victories on the Euro tour; Rafa Cabrero Bello, who played well as a Ryder rookie in ’16 Cup and is rounding into form with a near-miss at the Italian Open and top-10 at the PGA; and Thomas Pieters, a monster at the ’16 Cup who hasn’t won since but has suddenly gotten hot. Is Bjorn willing to put his trust in Sergio? Can he talk himself into another Ryder rookie? These are huge unknowns. I would pick Garcia and Knox but there are a number of ways Bjorn can go and it will be fascinating to see what he does.

I think these are more interesting than the U.S. picks, though that's likely because the two old guys on the U.S. side.  Europe's bet on veterans backfired at Hazeltine, though it's hard to know how to interpret that precedent.

But it's important to take a moment to enjoy Sergio's whining that he only misses his cut by a single stroke....  That's the ticket, Sergio, who apparently thinks Captain Bjorn should grade on a curve.

This gent argues the anti-Sergio case:

As Sunday’s final-round drama played out at the 100th PGA Championship, Sergio Garcia was long gone. 

Disappointing rounds of 70 and 71 at Bellerive sent the enigmatic Spaniard packing, putting up his eighth missed cut of the season and seventh in his last 11 tournaments. He has failed to make the weekend in all four 2018 majors and placed 70th at the Players Championship. Ranked 23rd in the Official World Golf Ranking, he’s also likely to find himself out of the FedEx Cup playoffs. 

Should a flailing Garcia be part of the European Ryder Cup team in Paris? It’s been a rough run of late for the 38-year-old, who a year ago seemed reinvigorated by his breakthrough major win at the Masters, his marriage to Angela Akins and fatherhood.

And that's in the context of Bjorn pleading for Sergio to show him something....   

I think Pieters will be hard for Bjorn to overlook, at least if he can continue to show such form.  He's a beast and played so well in 2016, as did Rafa.  Tough calls...

Our Captain Furyk broke some news as well:

Speaking to reporters on Monday, captain Jim Furyk said that if Woods does make the roster as a player, he will be removed from his assistant responsibilities. 

"I want to make sure I have five vice-captains there," Furyk said. "That's what we're allowed, and I see a lot of value in having all five there." 

At the moment, Furyk only has tabbed three assistants—Woods, two-time Ryder Cup captain Davie Love III and Steve Stricker (last year's Presidents Cup captain, and a favorite to be the head man at his home state of Wisconsin at the 2020 Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits)—meaning he could be searching for three assistants along with the four player selections on the slate.

That's a shocking development, but since none of know what assistant captains do, I'll not panic.  But that "if" is pretty rich, since the chances of Tiger not being on the team asymptotically approach zero.

But since there's two job openings, this Shipnuck questioner has a suggestion:

Phil’s game is sliding, would it make more sense for him to be a vice captain? If you’re serious about winning? -Lou (@TheSlowHand)

It’s an intriguing idea. The U.S. side would still benefit from his leadership while opening up a spot for a young player. In the Task Force era there is a strong predisposition for continuity and planning for the future. Justin Thomas is the only Ryder rookie among the U.S.’s eight automatic qualifiers, though the rest of the core remains very young. But Phil finished a credible 10th in the points standings and won a marquee event this year. It’s true he’s been a non-factor all summer, but the guy has been a stalwart for the U.S. side for a quarter-century. He and Furyk are contemporaries, and everyone knows this could be Phil’s last shot to play in a Cup and win one on European soil. Is Furyk gonna be the guy to tell Phil he doesn’t deserve a spot on the team? I think not.

Careful Jim, unless you want a piece of the shiv that Phil gave Watson....  That Gleneagles presser should be viewed as a hostile takeover of the U.S. Ryder Cup team, and if you're aiming at the king, you better kill him.  

But I do agree that Phil's game is cause for concern. as are DJ's and Jordan's....   

The Legend of T.J. Vogel - Who doesn't love a scrappy underdog?  

It might be time for the collective golf world to take a second and recognize the feats of a 

golfer whose name you likely haven't heard before. If you don't know the name T.J. Vogel, we'll forgive you. The 27-year-old golfer has made just three cuts in his PGA Tour career—all coming this season. 

If you're a casual leader-board checker, you most likely missed this name. That shouldn't happen any longer: Vogel is officially a legend for accomplishing what he has this season. 

On Monday, Vogel gained entry into his eighth PGA Tour event of the season as a Monday qualifier, shooting a 5-under 66 at the Wyndham Championship qualifier at Bermuda Run Country Club in North Carolina. The gritty Vogel survived a four-for-three playoff to capture one of the four spots up for grabs. It's an appropriate way to finish the 2017-'18 season for Vogel, who has unofficially broken a record that might be one of the more impressive accomplishments not just of this season, but of recent memory in golf.

Admittedly he hasn't done much with the opportunities, but it's a brutally hard thing to do, as explained here:

Mondaying into a PGA Tour field is one of the toughest things to do in pro golf. You have anywhere from 80 to 100 of the best non-PGA Tour members trying to birdie every hole to gain entry into that week's event. Patrick Reed did it six times in 2012, driving from city to city with his then-girlfriend, Justine, and her carrying the bag. Austin Cook parlayed his Monday-qualifying success into serious paychecks: Finishing T-13 in his first event, in 2014 in Memphis, then going on a string of top finishes in 2015—three top-12 finishes to earn status on the Web.com Tour, and eventually secure a PGA Tour card.

It's also expensive, as you have to get the the site every week with no assurance of a check....

It's Hammer Time - Good luck finding coverage of the U.S. Amateur, with only Golfweek seeing the need:

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – After Cole Hammer fired a 4-under 68 at Spyglass Hill to finish stroke-play qualifying of the U.S. Amateur at 6 under, he was asked about then

idea of being the top seed for match play. 

“Has anyone ever won it as a 1 seed?” Hammer asked. 

Yes, but not often. The last time the top seed won was 2004, when Ryan Moore took the title. Before that? Tiger Woods in 1996. 

“So there’s that,” Hammer said.

He actually will be the No. 2 seed, not that that's all that important.  Other name brands survived as well:

Several big names also advanced to match play, including four of the top five amateurs in the world: No. 1 Braden Thornberry, No. 2 Justin Suh, No. 3 Collin Morikawa and No. 5 Viktor Hovland. Morikawa has the toughest first-round match-up of the four in Vanderbilt’s John Augenstein. Hovland will play Oklahoma State teammate Hayden Wood. 

Other notable match-ups for Wednesday: 2017 U.S. Junior champ Noah Goodwin vs. mid-amateur Garrett Rank, who doubles as an NHL referee; 2016 U.S. Mid-Amateur champ Stewart Hagestad, who shot 66 Tuesday at Pebble Beach, vs. UNLV’s Harry Hall; and Georgia Tech’s Tyler Strafaci vs. LSU’s Luis Gagne, the reigning U.S. Open co-low amateur.

Now the match-play field isn't quite set, as there's this bit of unfinished business for this morning:

The final spot for match play will be filled via a 24-for-1 playoff, which will begin Wednesday at 7:30 a.m. on Pebble’s 17th hole.

24-for-one?  So, you're saying there's a chance?

How are the managing this?  Will they go as one 24-some, or eight 3-somes?