Midweek Musings

Thanks for not griping about my day away from the keyboard, as it's quite the busy week.  Pity me, as I've been spending way too much time with car salesmen....

Q-School Travails - Monday we had the inspiring story of Cody Blicks, the young man who discovered his clubs stolen, only to shoot a 63 in the final round to secure some 2019 status.  Today's tale is more of the heart-breaking variety:

Midway through the back nine on Sunday, Patrick Sullivan was sitting right on the cut line. It was the final round of the final stage of Web.com Q-School at Whirlwind G.C. in

Chandler, Ariz., with the top 40 guaranteed eight starts next season. Sullivan, a 35-year-old veteran, faced a birdie putt on the par-4 14th — and then the unthinkable happened. He putted it off the green into the adjacent water hazard.

The putt and resulting penalty stroke led to a double-bogey six. Sullivan bogeyed the next hole, too, slipping to 14 under. But then Sullivan mounted a rally; he birdied No. 16 and eagled No. 17 before stiffing his second shot inside four feet on No. 18. Make it and he’d be inside the top 40. He missed.

Man, this game can be cruel.  The not-so-young-man seems to have taken it with some humor, but then again he's well acquainted with the heartbreak this game can provide.

Since you mentioned Q-School, we'll employ my trademark segue skills to dip, not for the last time today, into Alan Shipnuck's weekly mailbag:

Cody Blick fired a 63 in the final round of Q school to get status. Has there ever been a better round played with rentals? Only close comparison I know of is Sam Saunders medaling in 2015 US Open qualifier with his caddie’s clubs. But he didn’t have to dip into the rental bin. #AskAlan -Chris (@ctimmerman35) 

Yes, years from now they’re going to be singing songs in taverns about the Blickman’s round. That took incredible fortitude. It also should give us some perspective as we all obsess over our clubs. I remember at a long ago Presidents Cup, David Duval broke a club and and had to borrow an 8-iron. He used it to flag a tee shot on a closing par-3 to help win the match. Afterward he shrugged it off, saying, “An 8-iron is an 8-iron.” But to your question, the greatest round ever played with rentals might’ve been after FedEx lost my clubs and I had to play the Old Course with decades-old loaners. I hit the ball pretty well, but what made the round so heroic was that I was wearing busted-out rental shoes in which I could feel the contours of all the feet that had preceded mine. No golfer has ever displayed more heroism.

OK, Alan, it's not all about you.  Good question and I also like the Sam Saunders story, but this is one we should submit to the entire Tour Confidential panel.

Bye-Bye Birdie Dance -  Color me shocked, I thought this guy had tenure:

Zach Johnson has split with longtime caddie Damon Green, according to a report from

The Caddie Network. Green had been with Johnson since 2003; together the partnership won two majors, nine other PGA Tour events and banked tens of millions in prize money. 

The move came as a surprise to Green. 

“Zach said, ‘I think we need to take a break. It’s not a ‘firing.’ We’re too good friends for that.'” Green told The Caddie Network. “I just think he didn’t want to say the word ‘fire.’ I was shocked.” 

Green, 58, is a golf lifer, and more than just a looper. As a player, he won dozens of mini-tour events and came one two-footer away from earning his Tour card in 1994. In recent years, he has competed sporadically in golf’s senior circuits, even contending at the 2011 U.S. Senior Open. But he has gained an identity as the man on Johnson’s bag; the two have made 387 starts together.

If this guy can get canned, then any of them can....  For anyone that doesn't get the header:

Green also became known for his celebratory “chicken dance” after particularly good shots. “Well, golf is so boring,” he told GOLF.com several years ago. “You’ve got to do something to spice it up a little bit.”

 Shippy gets a query along these lines as well:

Now that we’ve seen the end of Phil/Bones and Zach/Damon, what is the player/caddie combo that you say will never split up? #AskAlan -Chris (@BetterThanMost) 

Pat Perez and Mike Hartford, who also serves as psychoanalyst and wet nurse. They’ve been inseparable since they were teens and H, as he has known, has the final say on club selection. As Perez once told me, “I put my entire trust in H. He’ll say, ‘You’ve got 158 front, 172 hole, 165 over this corner, wind off the left, give me a three-quarter six-iron.’ Bang. Done. He can see it more clearly than I can. With all the pressure and the nerves, it’s easy to lose your head out there.” And these days, it’s easy to lose your caddie, but this is one partnership that will endure.

That's some seriously inside baseball, as I'd never heard of the guy....  No, not Pat....  Him I've heard of, but barely.

The Legacy of....Lefty -  Dave Shedloski pens a paean to the resilience of our Phil, framed by his Shinny hissy fit:

When Phil Mickelson raced across the 13th green at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in the third round of the 118th U.S. Open and whacked his ball while it was careening down a

slope away from the hole, he crossed through the fourth circle of golf hell. Not only did he change the direction of the shot as it was moving, but, it was believed, he had altered the direction of his career narrative. Whatever the artful player did going forward, that unhinged moment when he broke the rules and arrogantly explained that he did so intentionally, all occurring on his 48th birthday, was sure to affix itself permanently to Lefty’s legacy. Or so went the predominant opinion. 

Five months later in Las Vegas, as part of a mega-hyped match against Tiger Woods, Mickelson won $9 million. Never in the lead up to the winner-take-all match or during coverage of it or in the postscript was the U.S. Open or the incident mentioned—except by Woods, who taunted his rival when he ruthlessly pointed out that he had never won the national championship. Neither was the L’Affair Shinny a topic of discussion in September at the Ryder Cup in Paris, not even among the tabloids. Nor in August at the PGA Championship in St. Louis.

Fair enough, as that was Phil at his smartest-guy-in-the-room worst....  I do credit him with his apology, though, taking the heat as much for his post-round comments as for the act itself.  Of course it's Phil, so he sent Amy out to launch the contrition tour, but still....

Shedloski only has one passing reference to 2014, and that seems to me the more significant issue.  The performance of the U.S. Ryder Cup team in Paris put the lie to everything Phil told us at Gleneagles, yet no reported seems to have connected those dots.

Those Pesky Members - Accusations of misogyny are sure to follow this story:

In a close vote that clearly created some division within the membership of the Country Club of Rochester, the club turned down the opportunity to host the 2020 U.S. Senior Women’s Open.

One member who voted to bring the tournament to CCR, wrote in an email to the Democrat and Chronicle, “a minority of small-minded, selfish and elitist members have ensured this opportunity to have a women’s tournament in 2020 (wouldn't happen). It is a loss for our club and the City of Rochester.” 

Club president Jeff Mapstone penned a letter to the membership on Thursday, and in it, he said, “We understand that there are mixed emotions throughout the club. We do respect that there are many differences of opinion among our 540 members.”

I suspect that we'll be hearing many such stories in the near future, perhaps the biggest surprise being that the vote was even close.

CCR has a long history of supporting women's golf, as the first Women's Open was held there in 1953.  Shack gets at the crux of the mater in his post on the subject:

Not clear is just how much hosting would cost the club financially. Amateur events generally can run up to $1 million in expense to the host.

The USGA is asking the members to give up their golf course for a period of weeks, and absorb a big number as well....  One can't help but suspect that number of clubs prepared to do so will become increasingly limited.

More Alan - He makes my job easy, so expect lots of him in the future:

#AskAlan predictions for the now married Jordan Spieth number of victories this year? Over/Under 2. #fan –@eugesounds 

Pretty much every week Spieth questions trickle in, and they skew toward this duality. Done?!? The dude is 25! I’ll take the over on two victories – I think he’ll rebound in a big way. Even during the worst season of his young career Spieth still had a chance to win the Masters and British Open. Tee to green he has become one of the best players in the world, and he’ll figure out the putting. He may never again roll it like he did in 2015, but that’s okay, because only a couple of guys in the game’s history ever have. Even with merely very good putting Spieth will still be a threat.

Shippy is more bullish on Jordan than I, but let me cite some 2018 stats from the PGA Tour's website:

 Strokes Gained:  Off-the-Tee: .254 (54th place)

 Strokes Gained:  Approach:   .450 (26th)

 Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green:  .927 (22nd)

Those are good numbers, frankly better than I expected.  But one of the best in the world?  barely, if that....

This one is cute:

When pros switch manufacturers is it because they believe the clubs/balls are better or just $$$? -@gwdowell 

The sweet, unsullied innocence of this question is so endearing. I can imagine you hand-feeding a baby deer when you typed it. I hate to be disillusioning, but it is pretty much always about the money.

I don't want to be there when GW finds out that there's gambling in Casablanca....

I’m not sure she would want to attempt it but could Lexi make the cut at a PGA tour event? -Mike (@mdarmstrong) 

Certainly. If she plays well Lexi could easily shoot three- or four-under, which should make the cut at a Tour event. I’d love to see her try it.

Lexi is such a bad putter that I really have my doubts....

This is silly as well:

Will we have resolution to the distance issue in 2019 (USGA/RA)? -@JamesLee203 

No.

In another effortless segue, there's news on that front:

What the USGA once described as a “slow creep” in distance exploded in 2018—at least 

on the PGA Tour. Driving distance leapt from 292.1 yards to 296.1—a four-yard, one-year increase. That came after a 2.1-yard jump the year before, a number that caused the USGA and R&A to launch the Distance Insights Project, an 18-month, comprehensive study that will blend data with input from virtually all of the game’s stakeholders, including everyday golfers, via online and telephone surveys.

Six yards in two years is significant, though I do think this provides the starker view of the current state of play:

Though some who have participated feel the questions have been biased toward a negative impression of distance, there’s no denying at the elite level that the game’s best have gotten longer. Fourteen players averaged 310 yards or more this past PGA Tour season and 60 topped 300 yards compared to 7 and 40, respectively, the year before.

I'll remind that these numbers are Pre-CC.  That being, of course, Cameron Champ....

One last offering from Shipnuck:

Are we now in the wraparound post-season, the 2019 preseason or just holiday break? Call me confused. -John (@jjbuckspa) 

There is a name for a month without any meaningful golf: purgatory.

Or, as I like to think of it, ski season.

I'll probably see you tomorrow, though time is very short.  Friday is a travel day, so no blogging is contemplated.