Udder Stuff

We went a little long on that earlier post, so I'll try to activate my brevity gene...  The joke, of course, being that I quite obviously didn't come equipped with any of those....

Sad News - Reality intrudes into our little bubble with this quite horrible news:

After years battling leukemia, Australian Tour pro Jarrod Lyle will stop active treatment and enter palliative care, his wife Briony announced on Tuesday. 

“My heart breaks as I type this message,” Briony Lyle wrote in a post on Lyle’s Facebook page. “Earlier today Jarrod made the decision to stop active treatment and begin palliative care. He has given everything that he’s got to give, and his poor body cannot take anymore. We’ll be taking him closer to home in the next couple of days so he can finally leave the hospital.” 

Lyle, 36, has battled leukemia on and off for much of his adult life. He was first diagnosed as a teenager but successfully fought the cancer even before he earned his PGA Tour card in 2007. Lyle’s leukemia returned in 2012, but he was again declared cancer-free a year later and returned to action on Tour. In recent years he has served as a television analyst and played competitively in Australia.

It's been a long and difficult fight for Jarrod and his family, and all we can do is offer our prayers.  

Scenes From the Lancashire Coast -  The ladies are at Royal Lytham for their Open, and Beth Ann Nichols takes a deep dive into the intimidating bunkers found there:

Two winters ago, the powers that be at Royal Lytham removed 36 bunkers, bringing the total count to 167, still the highest number on the British Open rota. This was done to make the course more playable for amateurs. Most of the bunkers removed, however, didn’t even come into play for professionals. The sand still remains Lytham’s first line of defense. 

Coming into the week, three-time British Open champ Karrie Webb told newbies that Lytham boasted the most severe pot bunkers she’d ever seen. 

“There were times I had to take an unplayable,” Webb said.

They're everywhere and they're DEEP.  Of course, there was that guy that won two Opens at Lytham....

While there’s usually a chance to make a shot from greenside bunkers, fairway bunkers are another story. Inbee Park called them an “automatic bogey.” 

“And there are too many to avoid,” she said. 

In preparing for the week, Ryu spoke with former Australian player Michael Clayton, who told her Seve Ballesteros hit into 14 bunkers one of the years he won at Royal Lytham and got up and down 13 times. 

When Ryu asked for Seve’s secret, Clayton said, “Impossible. Only Seve can do it.”

How deep are they?  Shall we dive into my photo library?  There was this fairway bunker, into which I ventured for a photo op:

As I noted at the time, had my ball found that bunker, I'd likely still be there.

Are you familiar with Lytham's ninth hole.  I've long wanted to do a post on intimidating, short Par-3's, of which this might be the best.  Such holes feature small, table-top greens, surrounded of course by deep, revetted bunkers.

Here's how the hole looks from the tee box:

Nothing to it, right?  Just a wedge or nine-iron, though lofted clubs in the inevitable winds lead to adventures and crooked numbers.  there are at least seven bunkers surrounding the green, and any miss is almost guaranteed to find one...  Such as happened to this lovely lady:

It didn't end well....

Should be a fun week, but the winner will be she who best avoids the sand.

Tiger Scat - Mike Bamberger pens types a love letter to Tiger's return to Akron, including this from back in May:

So it was striking, on the Sunday night of the Players in mid-May, when Tiger Woods

stood in front of a gaggle of reporters after his T11 finish and said, “There are some big events to play, and one of my goals is to get into Akron one last time before we leave there. I’ve won there eight times and I would like to get there with one more chance.” Then, tellingly, he added this: “But I’ve got to do some work between now and then.”

Woods was responding to a question teed up for him to talk about Nicklaus’s upcoming tournament, the Memorial, the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, or the British Open at Carnoustie. But he went straight for Akron instead: the final edition of the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational on the South Course of the Firestone Country Club in Ohio. Woods’s first Tour event there was in 1997, in the old World Series of Golf fall event.

I get that he's gonna love a place where he's won twenty-three times, but the rest of us don't have to pretend that we do as well.  If you want to relive his dominance at Firestone, Dylan Dethier has you covered, including this video of his reenactment of the Homer in the Gloamin':

Anyone get that Gabby Hartnett reference?I didn't think so....

From his presser this week, he used his disappointment at Carnoustie as a teachable moment for his young 'uns:

Woods said it was important for Sam, 11, and Charlie, 9, to see how much he was “grinding” late at Carnoustie. 

“They said, ‘Well, you weren’t going to win,'” Woods said. “I said, I know I wasn’t going to win, but that doesn’t stop me from grinding. So yeah, that is a teachable moment cause they were there in present, in person. Sometimes you can’t always see that on TV.” 

“Failure is part of what we do out here,” he continued, “but there’s also things you can learn from it.”

There's more losing than winning in every sport, but especially in golf.

Let me just note that this week brings us full circle, this being Tiger's last Tour win exactly five years ago.   

Speaking of Bryson... - Another effortless segue for y'all, as Shane Ryan does a deep dive into the Mad Scientist of golf.  Shane begins his piece with this video captured by Brendan Porath, as should you.  Go ahead and watch it...I'll be here when you get back.

Not exactly Tour Sauce, no?

It’s an incredible 57 seconds, and it builds wonderfully. It starts with Bryson DeChambeau hitting a bad shot on the range after his first round at the Open Championship at Carnoustie, and displaying an ordinary level of frustration. Then it cuts suddenly to him in a very melodramatic pose, head in gloved hand, obviously confronting some demons. Then he takes another shot, seems vaguely OK with it, and suddenly collapses to the ground, both hands now covering his face in a show of actual grief. At this point, it’s worth looking at the other four men who surround him, because none of them know how to handle this Kabuki theater-level of emotion. They are all, instead, just staring off in other directions. 

Then, amazingly, the final 30 seconds of the clip simply show DeChambeau wandering off into the wilderness, all by himself, like a man of surpassing faith who has just been shown incontrovertible proof that god isn’t real. 

In a sport that is flooded with anger, this was something else entirely. As a portrait of the artist as a young man, it was both overwrought and utterly sincere, deadly serious and also extremely funny.

Give it the full read it deserves.  A felloe prone to that level of emotion on the driving range would seem to be ill-suited to the rigors of a life on Tour.  Which should make it fascinating to watch, though I don't see much that's "extremely funny" in it, and I'm not often accused of being excessively sensitive to the misfortunes of others.

How Could That Have Gone Wrong? - As you know, I'm a skeptic of the "Golf is Dying" meme, though it's not like I think the game is growing to any extent.  But combine golf with the travails of media properties, and this becomes no surprise:

The $120 million loss in 2017 was the result of a sharp decline in the ad revenue generated by the print magazines. Gains in the digital arena have offset the loss, but not enough to make the company profitable. 

Based in part on the recommendation of Boston Consulting Group, the three magazines that the company will try to sell are Brides, Golf Digest and W, the three executives said. 

John Wagner, who oversees ad spending at the media agency PHD, questioned the company’s strategy, saying that Condé Nast can be “quick to close things, versus trying to find a solution.” He added, “I’d like to see them continue to invest — keep the brands alive, even if you have to change their rate base or publishing frequency.”

This from Shack might be the most depressing bit:

Conde Nast purchased Golf Digest in 2001 for an undisclosed price, though the number is believed to have been several hundred million dollars.

Several?  Yanno, a hundred million here and a hundred million there, and pretty soon we're talking real money....  Based upon the recent sale of Golf Magazine, they'll get nothing for it.  

My Break-Up With Justin Rose Explained - I likely won't be picking Justin Rose to win the PGA, though only because my hand has been forced:

Justin Rose will not play in this week’s WGC-Bridgestone Invitational after all.

It was announced Wednesday that the Englishman has withdrawn from the event due to back spasms. The good news is that Rose iterated he still plans to compete in next week’s PGA Championship. 

This withdrawal is the second at Firestone already, as Adam Hadwin also bowed out of the field Wednesday. 

Rose entered this week as a strong candidate to win, having finished T-2 in his last start at the British Open and placing top 10 in his last five events overall. He’s never won at Firestone but boasts a strong record there that includes several top fives. 

The 38-year-old has had back issues before, including a 12-week hiatus in late 2016 due to a back injury.

Justin, it's not you, it's me....

We good?  Until tomorrow....