Midweek Musings

I received a Fairview Golf Committee report yesterday, and the covering e-mail noted that in the first three weeks of August our course received 13 inches of rain.  So, if I seem a little cranky...

59 Is The New 64 - Everyone is all over the fact that 59's aren't what they used to be, first this from Shack:

I was at a golf course snack bar when the Golf Channel was showing highlights from Brandt Snedeker's 59 at the Wyndham Championship. It was the 10th such round in PGA Tour history and when some golfers looked up and asked if he'd shot 59, I said yes and

they went, "ah that's great" and then went about decorating their hot dogs. 

A decade ago, I'm pretty sure we all would have stopped what we were doing to watch all of the highlights and regale in the history playing out before our eyes.

Throw in a 58 by Jim Furyk and it seems like the 59 has gone from golf's equivalent of a perfect game to a no-hitter. Still an amazing feat and worth dropping what we're doing to see a player break the barrier, but also not quite as satisfying as it should be. 

Is this because of how many have occurred since Al Geiberger broke golf's sound barrier, perhaps coupled with the 13-under-par nature of the first three when par-4s sometimes actually required a long-iron approach? 

Or has the role of distance, improved technology, amazing agronomy and golf courses put in a strategically untenable position played a role in making them a little less magical?

Ya think?  Hasn't exactly the same thing happened with the Major Championship 63, which have become a dime a dozen (and we even have exactly one 62, to make the analogy even more fitting).

Alan Shipnuck gets into the act in his weekly mailbag feature:

Which of the ten 59s shot on the PGA Tour was the best and why? #AskAlan -@ViniciusAlvarez 

Al Geiberger’s, because it was the first. You can’t understate how big a deal it was to become golf’s Roger Banister – don’t forget it was 14 years until another player broke golf’s 4-minute mile. It’s tempting to say the best 59 was actually a 58; funny how what Furyk (and Ryo Ishikawa) did seems to fall out of the conversation. But for sheer artistry and drama, I think the greatest sub-60 round is David Duval’s 59 at the ’99 Bob Hope. The tie-breaker is that Duval’s came on Sunday to win the tournament, and his walk-off eagle is the all-time exclamation point.

No quibbles on either point, though I'll just add that the course on which Geiberger made his was not the pushover folks assume.  

What strikes me is the odd mix of players that have accomplished the feat:

Al Geiberger (1977)

Chip Beck (1991)

David Duval (1999)

Paul Goydos (2010)

Stuart Appleby (2010)

Jim Furyk (2013 & 2016)

Justin Thomas (2017)

Adam Hadwin (2017)

Brandt Snedeker (2018)

A lot less talent on this list than I'd have expected, and also not the bombers I'd have expected.  Almost leads one to view it like a hole-in-one, more indicative of luck than... well, who knows?

Scenes From Tiger's Presser - Tiger tries to explain his effect on golf fans:

“I’ve had people into it over the years, but this has been so different,” said Woods, who

will compete in the FedEx Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2013. “We go back to how everyone received me at [the Valspar in] Tampa, that was very special and I had not received ovations and warmth like that. I guess everyone knows I’ve struggled and I’ve had some back pain and I’ve gone through four surgeries and I’m trying to work my way back, and it’s been tough. People understand that. 

“I think that people are more, I guess, appreciative,” he added. “I don’t want to make that sound wrong or anything but they know I’m at the tail end of my career, and I don’t know how many more years I have left. But I’m certainly not like I was when I was 22. Forty-two is a different ballgame.”

All things being equal, I know I find myself pulling for the old guy.  It's just a great story, so I don't feel like we need to put it under the microscope to explain it...  

Also, this little nugget of postmodernism:

Conversations between Jim Furyk and Tiger Woods have gotten a little awkward. 

That’s what happens when Woods, the U.S. Ryder Cup vice captain, needs to assess the prospects of Woods, the player. 

“We’re talking about myself in the third person a lot,” he said with a chuckle Tuesday at The Northern Trust. “That’s one of the most interesting conversations I’ve ever had and I’m having a lot of fun with it. 

“I’m one of the guys on the short list, and sometimes I have to pull myself out of there and talk about myself in the third person, which is a little odd.”

 Life always devolves into a Seinfeld episode....

Back to Shipnuck for a sec:

Why is Tiger teeing it up this week? #AskAlan -@djdonof

The search for feels never sleeps.

Heh!  Though, to be fair (Ed: Why start now?), Tiger isn't yet into the Tour Championship and can use the ranking points to secure his slots in the WGCs next year.  

Bubble Boys -  That puts us at two Seinfeld references today, but the meter is still running....  Joel Beal reviews the candidates and has this on the current state of play:

Lock: Tiger Woods 

Stop playing games, Jim. This "Tiger hasn't earned his spot" charade is fooling no one.

Not only has Woods turned in admirable runs at the Open and PGA Championship, but his second-shot performance (fourth in approach) and work around the greens (ninth in sg/atg) are sought-after attributes in team play. Plus, the Ryder Cup, at its modern core, is a TV-constructed spectacle. PGA of America and NBC Sports executives have seen the recordaudience figures in Tiger's return. You think they're going to allow the most popular player to be sitting on the sidelines? Throw in his contributions as vice captain the past two seasons, Woods is a surefire bet to tee it up in Paris.

 Of course, though if he really stunk up the joint the next couple of weeks....Next case:

Should Be In: Phil Mickelson 

One. That would be the number of top-10 finishes Mickelson has logged in the last five months since his win in Mexico. The venerable left-hander hasn't been bad in this stretch; he just hasn't been particularly good. That he's been a non-factor at big events—T-36 at Augusta, T-48 at Shinnecock, a distant T-24 at Carnoustie, missed cuts at Sawgrass and Bellerive—doesn't help, nor does the lingering stigma of his U.S. Open gaffe.

Depends what you mean by "should"....  But if he hasn't been "bad", maybe you could explain what bad would look like.

Let's digress to Mr. Shipnuck:

Phil should be content with a vice captaincy in Paris and not take a spot from a younger player with a bigger upside in years to come. Does Furyk have the huevos to make that call? -@CountDownDave 

Not in a million years.

Another amusing bit from Alan, but I've long argued that that Gleneagles presser should be viewed as Phil's hostile takeover of the event, making his exclusion a non-starter.

Back to Joel:

Vets: Matt Kuchar, Zach Johnson, Brandt Snedeker

As for Snedeker, the former FedEx Cup champ was in golf's wilderness for almost a year with a rib injury yet enters the postseason with four top 10s in his last eight starts, highlighted by a 59 and win in Greensboro. Additionally, he was 3-0 for the Americans in Minnesota, seemingly making everything on the greens inside 30 feet, and gave the world this:

I'm pretty sure those guys won't be in Paris.....

Beall goes through the young guns (The Professor, Dr. X, Finau), as well as the bulldogs, so give it a read if you're interested.  I'm more interested in the sudden Sneds boomlet, as I just don't see a spot for him on the team.

Shipnuck seems to buy in with this Q&A:

Is Snedeker now a lock for the Ryder Cup team? -Cathryn (@catheconnors) 

‘Lock’ is a very strong word but he’s certainly put himself in a great position. Sneds’s rousing performance in Carolina was a chance to revisit his rock-solid play at the ’16 Ryder Cup, where he won both a fourball and foursomes match shepherding a kid named Koepka and then dusted Andy Sullivan (who?) in singles to complete an undefeated week. Given that the U.S. hasn’t won a road game in a quarter-century, I’ve been saying all along that Furyk’s picks are going to skew toward hardened veterans over untested young talents. With Tiger and Phil taking up two picks, it could very well come down to a choice of Snedeker versus contemporaries Zach Johnson and Matt Kuchar. Sneds is clearly a lot hotter right now than either of them so I think I just talked myself into believing he’s, ahem, a lock.

But two questions later comes this:

How can players like Snedeker play so otherworldly—as he just did—but are usually so mediocre? Or did he find something special about his game? -@JoeGunter

It is the eternal mystery of golf. Every guy on Tour has the tools to go low – what pushes them into that zone? Sometimes it’s a new swing thought or rediscovered mechanical fix. In Snedeker’s case, he said after the PGA Championship he realized he was obsessing too much about the outcome of every shot and at Sedgefield merely focused on the process of hitting a good one. Simple, right? Clearly he should play like this every week for the rest of his career. But now Snedeker is thinking (and being asked incessantly) about the Ryder Cup, and maybe winning the FedEx Cup. Suddenly it becomes much, much harder to blot out the thoughts about what every shot means, and that little mental shift is enough to make him revert to the mean. Swing thoughts are similarly perishable. With diligent work a player may start to hit it great, so suddenly they change their focus to improving their putting, which makes sense. After a week of relative neglect their swing deteriorates just enough that a little doubt creeps back in. There are many permutations of this but the bottom line is that so many factors – mental, physical, spiritual – go into playing high-level golf it’s really, really hard to stay in the zone for very long.

The other way to explain it is statistically.  Four rounds is a very small sample size, but everything ultimately regresses to the mean....

The question to me is what is the predictive value of good play at Greensboro in mid-August as relates to the Ryder Cup in late September?  I would think fairly low, but it's obviously an arguable point.

Secondary Laments - Got yer first world problems here, complete with a counter-intuitive solution:

The season’s final player advisory council meeting will be held on Tuesday at Ridgewood Country Club, and one item of interest on the agenda appears to be gaining traction among the 16-member panel. 

The secondary cut - introduced in 2008 to address large fields after the 36-hole cut and pace of play - has become increasingly unpopular. In 2014, the PGA Tour eliminated the secondary cut, which occurs if 78 players make the 36-hole cut, at the first two playoff stops. Following a 54-hole cut at this year’s Players Championship, some suggested it should not be used at the circuit’s marquee event. 

The alternative that’s being studied is to reduce the cut at all Tour events from the lowest 70 players and ties to the lowest 65 players and ties. This would allow the circuit to eliminate the secondary cut at all events.

Doesn't that make the problem worse?  Here again, the reasoning escapes me:

“I think I’m a fan of it, because I’m a fan of trying to play twosomes on the weekends as much as possible,” said PAC member Paul Casey. “In Europe it seems to work all the time. I don’t like the extra cut on a Saturday, never liked that. A guy could have an amazing Sunday, he could go out and shoot 61 or something and get a top 10.” 

The European Tour utilizes a 65-and-ties cut, as does the Web.com Tour, which had 78 players or more make the cut in just three of 23 events this season.

Then why have a cut at all?  This isn't an issue that keeps me up at nights, but I also don't care much about the affected players, because they've by definition gone out Saturday and shot 76.

Shack Goes Medieval -  Upon former TaylorMade CEO Mark King, hired by Honma Golf to run their North American operations:

Overcompensated retread alert! 

Honma Golf USA is apparently unable to do basic Google searches to read up on how Mark King is not the man to run your equipment company unless you want an unhappy ending.

The former Undercover Boss star who wheeled out multiple Taylor Made drivers in a year in a move that set the company back with consumers, advocated 15 inch cups, sat on the two-meeting PGA of America task force to grow the game and eventually found himself stashed in Adidas North America offices somewhere, is back running Honma Golf USA.

Golf Digest gearhead Mike Stachura has a more favorable take on King:

Mark King, the former president and CEO of TaylorMade who transformed the golf industry’s innovation cycle and restored the company to a dominant leadership position throughout his three decades with the brand, is getting back in the golf business.

King’s TaylorMade was famous for relentless innovation and equally relentless product launches, eventually reaching more than 50 percent market share in metalwoods at one time and launching four new drivers in one 12-month span. Of course, a key part of its success also was dominance as the No. 1 played driver on the PGA Tour, but he also wasn’t afraid to change the status quo by introducing white drivers and even doing a segment on CBS’s "Undercover Boss". He was on the offensive from the jump in an industry that was conservative and defending the norm almost by rule. Under King, the then TaylorMade-adidas Golf reached $1.7 billion in annual sales in 2013, or about 1,700 times the revenue the brand was generating when King started there in the 1980s. 

Of course, King also hasn’t been shy at challenging golf’s traditions and its ruling bodies, advocating 15-inch cups and other alternative forms of the game, including non-conforming equipment, and once suggested to Score Golf that "the PGA of America should write its own set of rules with the PGA Tour."

Given that the denouement of his term was Adidas dumping TaylorMade, I think Shack has a point....  But Honma is quite a different company:

Honma, famous for its gold-plated clubs, artisan-style craftsmanship and five-figure price tags, has redoubled its efforts to become a major player in the golf business both globally and specifically in North America. Originally established in 1959 in Sakata, Japan, it languished in the early 2000s and was purchased out of bankruptcy in 2005 by a fund run by Liu, a Chinese businessman whose company makes hair dryers and rice cookers. An avid golfer, Liu changed Honma’s business model in Asia and its sales have increased the last four years in a row to nearly $250 million. Honma now is listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange after a 2016 initial public offering.

Five-figure golf clubs?  A niche brand for sure....