Tuesday Tastings

We're on the clock, as the bride and I are on our way to see the Sundance Kid....  OK, maybe we won't actually see him, but he'll be our host.  Might as well, as we're in a frustrating cycle where massive snow storms are hitting North and South of us...  I kid you not.

Your feel Good Story of the Day - How can you not root for this guy?

Making it through the Monday qualifier at the Honda Classic is even tougher. It typically has the strongest field of any Monday event, thanks to the tournament being held in

South Florida, where many of these young players live. 

None of that seemed to faze Erik Compton. He’s handled more pressure than merely playing in a golf tournament. The 39-year-old Miami native is the only known professional athlete who is a two-time heart-transplant recipient.

Translating for my golf-centric readership, in heart transplants Compton is the leader in the clubhouse.

Compton proved he was up to the golf challenge on Monday, shooting a seven-under 65 to share medalist honors with Drew Nesbitt at Banyan Cay Resort & Golf in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Monday, and earning the right to play in his first PGA Tour event since 2016.

John Feinstein has a profile of Compton that's well worth your time, in which he tells us that the man is far from through with golf.  Golf should be pleased with that....  In a news cycle in which we debate the relative boorishness of Sergio, Kooch and The Professor, the antidote is more Erik Compton.

The Good.... - Mike Bamberger is a relentless optimist, which can easily become cloying.  In his weekly feature on the seven best things in golf, he pays homage to Tiger's crazy-good fairway bunker shot last weekend:

4. Tiger’s Trap Shot 

The slicing, spinning 9-iron shot Tiger Woods played to 12 feet from a bunker on Friday in Mexico City brought to mind Jim Thorpe, for the club-down hold finish, and Tiger Woods his own self, for the audacious talent and forethought it took. It needed only one more thing to elevate it: for the ensuing birdie putt to drop. As another touring pro with a finger in Buddhist teachings, Peter Teravainen, used to say, “Good shots must come in groups of two.”

Quite the shot, and we amusingly got to see Patrick Reed soil himself from the very same spot the next day....

For those that don't know the name, Peter Teravainen is an American who plied his trade on the Euro Tour back in the day.  A newly married Mike Bamberger looped for him, memorably captured here.  Well worth a read...

More surprising was this cri de Coeur from Mike:

3. Bring back Ted! 

Ted Bishop, the outspoken former PGA of American president, came rushing back to mind last week when he wrote an insightful GOLF.com piece about Steve Stricker as the Ryder Cup captain. Bishop’s bio blurb noted that he was the 38th president of the PGA of America. As it happens, the Honda event this week is played at a course owned by the PGA of America, PGA National. The 41st and current PGA president, Suzy Whaley, is the first female president of the organization. Bishop’s two-year term has been all but wiped clean from PGA history and he enjoys none of the privileges that come from being a former president, like an invitation-for-life to the Ryder Cup! You might recall his offense: In a post Ryder Cup tweet in 2014, Bishop called Ian Poulter a “Lil girl.”Yes, it was an inane thing to write. But our language, via Twitter and otherwise, has been so debased since then if Bishop or anybody else wrote that today it would be a pebble in an ocean. The point here is this: isn’t it time for Bishop to be brought back into the fold, where he can have his place of honor among former PGA Presidents including George Sargent, Ed Dudley and Max Elbin? Suzy Whaley, an accomplished player and a bright leader in golf, would be the ideal person to do it, or at least initiate it. #rehabilitation.

OK, Mike falls into a typical trap here....  Yeah, they told us that Ted was beyond the pale because of that "Lil girl" comment, but we all know better....  ted was fired for the sin of hiring Tom Watson as Ryder Cup captain, setting in motion a series of events that solved all of our difficulties in that event.  Yeah, just kidding with that last bit, but still....

Shack could not let this pass, noting that Mike hasn't paid sufficient attention to Suzy's career:

Given that Whaley couldn’t wait to condemn former prez Bishop while standing by DUI-arrestee Paul Levy the last two years, don’t get your hopes up.

Yup!  On the more positive side, she'll learn from their mistakes, and I'm pretty sure she won't call anyone a Lil Girl or hire Tom Watson to helm the Ryder Cup team....  So we've got that going for us.

The Bad... And Some Ugly -  This could have been much better, but it's all we've got at the moment.  E. Michael Johnson lists things that we should copy from our heroes and, more interestingly, those we shouldn't.  Such as:

Putting your name on your bag

Our position on this one is pretty clear: If you’re not playing for prize money, then it’s better to remain anonymous. If you have your name on your bag there’s an expectation you’re a pretty good player and on some kind of tour. Save yourself the embarrassment when someone says, “Oh, what tour do you play on?” Added bonus advice: If you have your name on a big ol’ staff bag, then every caddie worldwide just thinks you’re a clown.

But what do you do if your name is Sun Mountain?

And the inevitable:

Taking forever over every shot

Tour players aren’t the only ones that take five-plus hours to play 18 holes and J.B. Holmes and Kevin Na aren’t the only slowpoke players. We all know that guy (or gal). In fact, you might see them simply by looking in the mirror. Simply put, there is zero reason to not be ready to play when it’s your turn. You likely play the same course almost all the time so you know your yardages, where the danger is, etc., etc. So stop throwing grass in the air like it’s actually going to matter. Grab a club and go. Not only will you play faster, but your score is likely to be lower.

And there's a dedicated ring in hell for those that plumb-bob two-footers....

News From USGA-World -  I'll try to channel my inner Mike Bamberger and stay positive, but I'm only one man.  

There is mostly good news from the U.S. governing body, as they announced a gaggle of venues for their marque amateur event:

U.S. Amateur Returns to Oakmont, Ridgewood, Cherry Hills,

Hazeltine National, The Olympic Club and Merion

Not a bad list, though Olympic and Hazeltine surprise, given that they seemed to have gone over to the dark side.... The next two are at Pinehurst and Bandon Dunes, so let's give them props for that at least.

Word also came down that some sort of reconsideration of amateur status is under consideration.  Lucy Li and Tony Romo were unavailable for comment....

But most attention was paid to Mike Davis' comments on the revised rules of our game:

“From my perspective, I would say by and large they’ve been a huge success,” Davis said. “They did exactly what we wanted them to do, which was really simplify the understanding and make them easier to apply.”

It just makes me wonder what failure might look like....

That doesn’t mean the process hasn’t come with some angst. Hearing tour pros rail against the USGA is nothing new. But USGA officials have tried to address the issues

quickly and provide players background for the changes in hopes that a better understanding of the thought process will assuage their concerns. 

“When you actually take them through ‘this is why’, it’s always a light-bulb moment,” Davis said. “‘Oh, I didn’t realize that.’ And I think that’s the frustration that there is. You know it would have been nice if you actually asked the why … but listen, it’s the world we live in.”

I'm sorry, Mike, but did you not catch the Tour trying to implement your rule about caddies aligning their players?  And perhaps Rickie Fowler needs to sign up for Amazon Prime, but his light bulb still hasn't arrived.

But by all means continue with the condescension.....

Leftovers - For reasons that remain unclear, I missed a couple of Shipnuck mailbag bits.  It was an especially good week for questions, including this gem:

On a scale of 1 to Steve Blass, how concerned are you about the state of Jordan Spieth’s mind? -Garrett (@gfordgolf) 

Deeply. Also his putting stroke. And swing. Clearly Spieth is accumulating massive amounts of scar tissue with his weekend blowups. But the guy has always been resilient. Even his greatest triumphs have been fraught – think of the 71st hole double bogey at Chambers Bay or the epic recovery at Birkdale. Spieth is too tough and too talented to simply go away at the tender age of 25. But it’s a long way back to where he was. I’m looking forward to watching him battle through this.

For those unfamiliar with Steve Blass Syndrome,  we've got you covered....That is exactly where Jordan seemed headed, no?

But this might be the Best. Question. Ever.

If the CBS telecast were a person would they have dinner at 4:00 pm in a Bob Evans? Would they also wear a sweater in July in Boca Raton? -@HouseSacco 

It’s true that the CBS telecast retains the sensibilities of Ken Venturi, who would now be pushing 90. I dare say that, except for slow play, nothing unites Golf Twitter like protestations about the CBS telecasts. The presentation and metabolism simply isn’t working with the modern golf fan. What’s interesting is that the PGA Tour knows it, because minions from the communications dept. have pushed back against some of the fiercest on-line critics. Perhaps all of this energy would be better spent helping CBS improve its product.

An interesting answer as well...  Of course I mean about the Tour pushing back on Twitter.  At least now we know what all those Vice Presidents actually do, I mean besides detailing Jay's Porsche.

Also inevitable:

How many weeks of this before Adam Scott starts taking the flag out from 3 feet and in? Obviously helping him on long putts but he’s been brutal on shorties. -Andrew (@Kitzmania) 

Through the years Scott has actually been a pretty okay putter from mid- and long-range. It’s the short putts that have always been his bugaboo. It’s not the flagstick that is hurting him, we’re just all paying closer attention to him because the pin is in. But he’s awful from short-range with or without the flagstick.

It's not the flagstick that's ever been an issue, but the guy holding the flat stick.  He's the poster child for outlawing anchored putting.  While we wish him well on a personal level, because he's an awfully nice guy, he confirms the wisdom of the rule change.

See you Thursday, probably.