Thursday Threads

A few news and notes for y'all....

FedEx Cup Stuff - A few reactions to the proposed changes to the Tour Championship, first the seemingly positive:

“In all sports you’ve got to win the final game of the year to win,” Jimmy Walker said. “If they want it to be a real playoff, you have to win the final event to win the whole

thing. I guess that’s where they’re going, so I think that’s probably right where it’s supposed to be.”

Yes, and they wanted it to be a real playoff, right up until the moment they realized that a playoff could result in Tiger being eliminated. 

One concern Chappell raised is that because the scenarios could get so confusing, players didn’t know what they needed to do in order to win the cup at East Lake. All they knew was they’d have a much better chance if they won the whole tournament, so that kept them motivated throughout the week.

Aren't they watching Steve Sands and his white board?  That really speaks to the complexity of the formula, of which I know no fans.  Some were not quite as enthusiastic:

That’s an unprecedented scoring change, for sure. Russell Henley, when informed of the reported changes, said it “Sounds kind of weird.” He figured it will add to the excitement in that a player has to win the tournament to win the whole thing, even if that includes a big head start.

More than "kind of" for sure.  And this:

“I think putting an emphasis on winning the FedEx Cup is great and not having a tournament within a tournament makes sense to change it up,” Chappell said. “I just would find it hard for those guys that are in 27th to 30th place to start a tournament 10 shots back and if you bogey the first two holes, how motivated are you going to be? It’s going to be pretty easy to take your golf ball and go home from that point on.”

Are you suggesting that Tour players sometimes fail to give maximum effort?   I suspect he'll be hearing from the home office on this...

Lastly, perhaps I didn't focus on the fine print, but this was news to me:

TPC Boston will be out of the rotation next year, with the playoffs going from four events to three. The Northern Trust will now alternate between Liberty National in New Jersey and Boston, with the Tour Championship concluding on August 25.

Ick!  I knew they had gone to great lengths to include TPC Boston, which is fine.  But I hadn't realized that they've discarde all of the interesting New Yor area venues, Bethpage, Ridgewood and Plainfield.  I get it, Tillie and Donald Ross are merely dead white men to whom today's modern players can't be expected to relate.

Ryder Cup Stuff -  Nothing too serious here, but that Bryson kid makes for good copy.  First this on a potential pairing:

Which raised the question: Has DeChambeau entertained any ideas on who he'd like to

play with in Paris? Particularly the thought of a certain 14-time major winner by his side? 

“It would be an honor to play with him,” DeChambeau said of Woods. “I think we could have some great chemistry out there and hopefully maybe intimidate some people, that would be nice.” 

Given the play of both this summer—along with the fact that Tiger is, well, Tiger—a DeChambeau-Woods combo is a pairing that has to frighten the French partisans...and delight those watching from the U. S. of A.

You mean like the Tiger-Phil pairing intimidated the Euros in '04?   To be fair, his use of "maybe" and "hopefully" limits the damage here, though whoever wrote the header wasn't being helpful.

But he also shows that he's well prepared for the demands of a slot on the team:

Bryson DeChambeau is known for his analytical approach to golf. In a press conference ahead of the Dell Technologies Championship on Wednesday, he proved that he also approaches his hobbies that way, specifically, improving his ping pong abilities. 

“I loved ping-pong. I used to practice at lunchtime with a couple of buddies of mine against this little robot. We bought a robot, not kidding, and we got a robot where this thing would shoot out the ball, different velocities, and different spin rates. This is what professionals practice with. We practiced every lunch period for a couple of years,” he said. DeChambeau went on to say that the robot worked: “I got pretty good, needless to say.”

Pretty good will not be good enough, especially if Kooch makes the team.

Shall we file this under wishful thinking?

One of the biggest storylines heading into the Masters was Spieth’s struggles on the green, but a funny thing started happening, under the radar, in early June. Spieth, who until this season had a reputation for being an elite putter, started to get his mojo back with his flatstick. 

“If you look at the last month, which is all I need to look at this year, my putting has been fantastic,” Spieth said as beads of sweat dripped down his face. “I’ve been one of the top putters on tour.”

That's not what my lyin' eyes tell me, but apparently there's data:

He’s right. Spieth missed the cut at The Memorial in June, not because he putted poorly, but because his iron game let him down. Starting with that event, statistically, Spieth’s putting has been outstanding, with a daily strokes gained putting average in five events of 0.944. To give that number reference, if that was Spieth’s average for the season, he would rank second on the PGA Tour behind Jason Day’s 0.965.

If true, that only means that he's giving it away from tee-to-green....  

We Can Only Hope -  Another tease:

Miller told the AP's Doug Ferguson that he'll be part of NBC's coverage of the Waste

Management Phoenix Open that weekend. But after that, his schedule and contract are up in the air.

“It’s been 50 years on the road, and part of me is saying, ’That’s enough,’” Miller said at a Tuesday media event ahead of the Safeway Open in October. “I haven’t gotten to that point yet. They’re still trying to convince me to keep going. So we’ll see. I usually listen to my gut, so to speak, and my wife. Right now, I am planning on scaling down even more. We’ll see what happens. Maybe I will say, ‘Hey, one more year.’”

At this point, the only thing that Johnny brings to the table is that he's not Nick Faldo.....   and that's not nothing.

But he's been working such a limited schedule that there's no point to retiring.  More interestingly, who do we think NBC sees in that role?  Maltbie is no spring chicken, Feherty also and has gotten lost at NBC and Bones hasn't blown me away.  Who am I missing?

A Little Cheese With That Whine, Sir? - Shack has good fun with this one:

Just when you felt like we were turning a corner, the PGA Tour's 21st century Bobby Joe Grooves took to Instagram to complain about free tickets to Fenway Park in the "line drive" section that prompted him to spend $650 on an upgrade that put him with other PGA Tour players who, hint, hint, got the good seats to begin with. And you wonder why Jay Monahan is prematurely grey?

Here's the offending post:

 Oh, the inhumanity of it all....  The comments were not kind:

Not especially clever, but my what pearly whites those girls have....

Another Day Under the Patriarchy - Shack and I both missed this story from a few weeks ago, about which I have very mixed feelings.  It's easy to see how one could take this as either rampant sexism or just another whine:

But what about free equipment? Surely that’s easy to come by. Turns out even a current World No. 1 might have to pull out a credit card for a new 3-wood. 

Two months ago, when Inbee Park was No. 1, caddie Brad Beecher reached out to a TaylorMade rep on behalf of Park to get replacements for the 3-wood, 5-wood and two Rescue clubs she had in her bag. Park is a Srixon staff player but is only required to have nine Srixon clubs in the bag. For more than five years she has played with four TaylorMade woods. That timespan includes six of her seven majors, an Olympic gold medal and more than 100 weeks as the No. 1 player in the world. 

Park received the same response as several other LPGAers: A new company policy stipulates that players must use a TaylorMade driver to get free product. 

Park almost immediately put new Srixon woods in the bag. 

“That’s where we are,” Park said at Royal Lytham. “It’s frustrating, but there’s nothing I can do at the moment.”

I am surprised, but let's remember that it's a business.  To the extent that this is a clearly established policy and is applied consistently, we can disagree with the policy but I'd encourage folks to avoid the sexism nonsense.

Given that your humble blogger, who actually watches women's golf, had no clue that Inbee had TM clubs in her bag, doesn't that tell us that there's no benefit derived from the relationship?  In bee has Srixon logos on her bags and clothing, so no doubt the TM folks think that she should go elsewhere for her free stuff.

But you know what else surprises me?  Here's another excerpt that'll point you in the right direction:

Martin, the 2014 British Open champion, said she hasn’t found a driver that can beat the TaylorMade M2. She actually bought a backup driver on Walmart.com. Bought her own Epon wedges too. Martin calls the whole situation unfortunate but will open her wallet to get what’s best for her game.

I'd have asked Inbee which clubs she preferred?  If it's the TaylorMades, I'm shocked that she wouldn't pop for the cost of the replacements.  If she finds them comparable, then go to the guys that have skin in the game....

Golf is Still Dead -  Mike Stachura picks up on an interesting number, and also frames it in an amusing anecdote:

Rounds played numbers for July were down across the U.S. by 1.6 percent compared to July 2017, which might be the most misleading statistic in golf history next to Jeff

Sluman holding the record for the longest drive ever recorded on the PGA Tour (473 yards, in 2003—yes, that Jeff Sluman and, yes, that 2003). 

The slight decline in rounds played is remarkable in that it came in a month where many sections of the country were receiving buckets of rain that likely washed out entire weekends, even weeks of rounds. At the very least, it could close a course to golf carts, further chilling the incentive for some to play.

Those blue states were the hardest hit, followed by the green.  Good catch by Mike.

A Man and His Majors -  The great Dan Jenkins is back with some excerpts from his forthcoming book, which seems to cover the panoramic sweep of his career.  You'll of course read it all, as we don't see much of the great man in his dotage.  But does he ever have stories, including these about another great man:

I was privileged to meet Bobby Jones back then. He used to invite two or three writers to 

lunch with him in his cottage most days of Masters Week. I was fortunate to be invited to one session. My relationship with Hogan had something to do with it. 

Jones couldn't have been more gracious. Except when I wanted to talk about Bobby Jones, he wanted to talk about Ben Hogan. 

Another brush with him came on the Augusta National course before the 1954 Masters. Writers were welcome to play the course for free if they showed up on the previous weekend. I was standing on the 15th tee with two other writers when a cart pulled up behind us. Sitting in the cart were Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts. 

They both smiled at me. Cliff Roberts also associated me with Hogan. He said, "We came out to see how the new mound is playing on this hole. Don't let us bother you." 

Bother me? Why would it bother me? I only had to hit a drive with Bobby Jones watching. Happily, my soaring hook didn't hit anything but a pine tree.

I like this next bit as well, though you need to understand the evolution of the press quarters at Augusta, from tent to quonset hut to lecture hall to the current palace.  Dan frames it quite nicely:

Looking back on it, I recall that I wrote about Hogan and Snead in the old tent, about Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus in the Quonset hut, and about Tiger Woods and Phil 

The quonset hut.

Mickelson in the lecture hall. 

Trudging forward amid talk of a new facility, I was eager to see what the latest Augusta National pressroom had in store for us. It was rumored to be decadent. When I arrived for the 2017 Masters, the press building's stunning exterior all at once brought to mind Windsor Castle, Versailles, the Biltmore Estates, Twelve Oaks and Tara. 

There it stood in the midst of a grove of beautiful trees and manicured lawns, all of which looked as if they'd been there forever when in fact they'd been planted, placed and groomed practically overnight.

Good stuff.

Where You Been, John :  John Garrity has long been one of my favorite golf writers, after all he discovered Askernish Old and wrote the book on Carne.  That said, John had seemingly disappeared from the face of the Earth in recent years, though he's back with this questionable thought:

Parkland perfection: Ireland’s links courses get all the glory, but its inland designs are fabulous, too

Really?  It's a tough sell, John.  As you might know, ther get quite a bit of rain and without the sandy substrate to ensure proper drainage....  well, you know.

John has obviously enjoyed Westport Golf Club, and I don't begrudge that.  In fact, Employee No. 2 and I had a tee time there in 2007, but we opted out as it was one of my seriously over-booked trips.

But more to the point, I fail to see the logic in parkland golf in either Ireland and Scotland, at least for the traveling American golfer.  Most of us go there for the sole purpose of experiencing links golf, so why waste the time inland?  Get thee to the linksland, you'll be glad you did.