Weekend Wrap

And what an insane weekend it was....  There may actually be more than we can cover in one post.

Phoenix On My Mind - Usually at this time we're talking about the craziness of the Wasted crowds and the like...  Were there even spectators this weekend?  Because they seem quite beside the point.  I arrived home to a text from my buddy Glenn telling me that, regardless of any time-shifting involved, I needed to see Rickie play the 11th hole.  Dammit, there goes my pre-Super Bowl nap.

Who won: Rickie Fowler (three-over 74, 17 under overall) 

How it happened: Fowler led by four to begin the day, but his playing partners Matt Kuchar and Justin Thomas did little to threaten him early. All three players made the turn in two over, and suddenly Fowler led by five on the 11th tee. But that’s when everything

All I hear lately is "Orange Man Bad"

changed. Fowler hit one ball into the water and then was penalized another shot for a rare rules infraction, resulting in a triple bogey. Fowler, perhaps still rattled, bogeyed the 12th and, after two straight birdies from Grace, trailed the South African by one. But Fowler birdied the par-5 15th to tie Grace and then took the lead when Grace hit his tee shot into the water on the drivable par-4 17th and made bogey. Fowler improved his lead to two with a birdie on 17 and ended up beating Grace (69) by that margin. 

Key hole: The 11th! Is there any question? Fowler led by five on the tee, but after his third shot went into the water and he took a drop, his dropped ball eventually rolled back down the bank and into the water as he was assessing his next shot. Since his ball was in play, it resulted in a one-stroke penalty and tournament-changing triple-bogey 7.

Everyone seems to want to call this a rules snafu, ironic given the actual snafus that affected other players this week and last.  A horribly bad piece of luck, for sure.... As for those who continue to insist that it's as if he had hit the ball into the water, we can all agree that math is hard.

Before we get to said rules issues, you might have heard that Rickie has had some troubles closing out tourneys.  Brian Wacker channels his subject, finding the half-full glass:

So when Fowler chipped across the green and into the water on the par-4 11th, then watched helplessly from the green as his ball rolled back into the water on its own, it

looked like Here we go again. The triple-bogey 7, followed by another bogey on the par-3 12th—where Fowler badly tugged his tee shot into a bunker and failed to get up-and-down—meant a five-stroke lead minutes earlier was suddenly a one-stroke deficit.

The good news for Fowler? There was still plenty of golf to be played, though. And this time he made the most of that opportunity.

Fowler, with his always forward-looking mindset, settled down (sort of) and bounced back with a birdie at the par-5 15th and another on the par-4 17th. He also made some nervy par saves—a six-footer on 13, an up-and-down from an awkward stance next to a bunker on the raucous 16th and one more on 18 after driving into thick rough.

What Rickie needed most of all was a win, and he got that.....

The Tour Confidential panel had this very question:

1. Rickie Fowler was 1 for 6 in converting 54-hole leads on the PGA Tour, and on Sunday he made it 2 for 7. He shot 74 — he still hasn’t broken par in any of these aforementioned final rounds — and overcame a rare rules snafu to win by two and claim PGA Tour victory No. 5. Was this Sunday a vote of confidence for Fowler, or a blow to his confidence?

The answers are of the predictable sort, with a couple of exceptions.  First, Josh Sens manages to frame it in the issue we've always had about our Rickie:

Josh Sens: This is a bit off topic, but what struck me today, watching from home, was that Fowler appeared in about half of the commercials — a reminder that he has long been a more successful brand than a player. That’s an indirect way of saying that Rickie has been a victim of our own high expectations of himself. But anyway, it’s hard to win on Tour. On top of that, trying to close is clearly in Fowler’s head. But I think he’s smart enough to take the positives out of today. A win’s a win, and the fact that he was able to limp through Sunday for a win has got to be more of a plus than anything.

It's that of course, but also the way h'es played at times, most notably in finishing off that Players Championship a few years back.  As Michael Bamberger astutely notes in his response, luminaries such as Nick Watney and Ben Crane each have five PGA Tour wins, but none of those were in orange.

But the response du jour is from John Wood, whose work I've come to enjoy greatly.  Woodie is an astute observer, and had the benefit of caddying for Matt Kuchar in that final group yesterday, making an important point only touched upon elsewhere:

John Wood: Well, being out in his group, I would say definitely more of a vote of confidence. Conditions were brutal, much tougher than the fairly benign conditions we had the first three days, and for a while our whole group was just kind of struggling

along trying to figure out if it really was this tough or if we were just languishing. I still felt like it was anyone’s tournament until Rickie birdied 10, at which point it felt like something crazy would have to happen… and then something crazy happened as everyone knows. For him to go through 11 and still get it up and down for 7, then bogey the next and STILL find the reserves to finish like he did and close the deal was incredibly impressive, and in the long run I think winning like that, finding reserves when things are going wrong, will be better than winning in a rout. He found something in himself on 14 through 18 that will be hugely important moving forward.

Had he stuck around until Sunday, Johnny Miller would have thought he was anywhere but Phoenix.  I didn't see it all, but it looked plenty difficult out there.

Those Simplified Rules - Are you guys Denny McCarthy fans?  Because he had quite the fifteen minutes of fame over the weekend, once again exposing our governing bodies at their worst.  It's a hard one to blog, though, especially since the objective itself, to stop caddies from aligning their players, is worthy.

Shack had this in the immediate aftermath of McCarthy being penalized:

Denny McCarthy’s infraction in the Waste Management Phoenix Open may be debatable

enough from all points of view that a rules re-write is already necessary, as Ryan Lavner writes for GolfChannel.com. Because while there is little question his caddie was directly behind him and where no caddy should be these days under the new rules, McCarthy had technically not taken a stance and was a bit too far from the ball to reasonably hit a shot. He also then backs off and goes through his routine, something that would absolve his caddie on the greens, but not in a fairway. Oy. 

He was immediately deemed to have been in a “golf posture” and therefore guilty of a violation under 10.2b (4).

Just a reminder that this all flows from the USGA/R&A objective to simplify the rules.....  Just let that rattle around in your head a bit.  There's just a couple of aspects to this that boggle my mind:

1.  They wrote the rules to hinge on a concept of a player beginning to take a golf stance, a needlessly undefined process that generated controversy when implemented against Haotong Li and McCarthy.  Very reminiscent to this observer of the first rewrite of the ball movng on the green, seemingly the work product of guys that don't play or watch much golf;
2. For reasons unexplained, they decided that stepping away would wipe the slate clean on the green, but not elsewhere.  I'm sure that all made sense in a conference room in Far Hills, NJ, but back here on Planet Earth not so much....

Of course you know how this played out, the Tour did its best Emily Littella:

Statement from PGA TOUR on Rule 10.2b(4)

Since the situation during Round 2 of the Waste Management Phoenix Open, which resulted in PGA TOUR player Denny McCarthy receiving a two-stroke penalty under Rule 10.2b(4), the PGA TOUR has been in constant contact with the USGA about how the new rule should be interpreted.

Not something you see every day, and one can only speculate about how this would have played out had McCarthy missed the cut.  How exactly does one retract the slam of a trunk?

But if you recall Alan Shipnuck's mailbag feature, yes the one in which he said that this would not be Rickie's year (such a crazy weekend that I don't have the time or inclination to bust his chops over that), he was asked whether a penalty such as the one given to Haotong Li would have been applied to a top ten player.

During the course of these discussions, this morning a similar situation from yesterday’s round involving Justin Thomas was also brought to our attention.

Abort!  Abort!

I'm feeling the need for more dialog, how about you?  As always, the USGA is there for us:

Following an ongoing dialogue with players and in cooperation with the PGA TOUR rules team, the USGA and The R&A revisited the penalty assessed to Denny McCarthy during round 2 of the Waste Management Phoenix Open. After an additional review of available video this morning, it was determined that the penalty would not apply in this instance nor in a similar instance involving Justin Thomas. In each of these cases, when the caddie was standing behind the player, the player had not yet begun taking the stance for the stroke, nor could useful guidance on aiming be given because the player was still in the process of determining how to play the stroke. The same would be true for any similar situation that might occur. 

The USGA and The R&A recognize that further clarity on how to appropriately apply this Rule is needed. We are committed to assessing its impact and will provide the necessary clarifications in the coming days.

I do get that a major rewrite of the rules might be hard to pull off without a hiccup or two, though I do think most of this is avoidable.  And they don't help themselves (speaking of the tours here, not the governing bodies) when they appear indifferent to the plight of the Haotong Lis and Denny McCarthys, but sainted JT must be protected.

The TC panel of course hopped on this issue as well:

4. Rule 10.2b(4) — advice and other help — has received a ton of attention lately, as Haotong Li was penalized two strokes for having his caddie in a direct line behind him as he addressed a putt last week and, this week, when Denny McCarthy and Justin Thomas were tied up with the rule in Phoenix. McCarthy was penalized two strokes under the same rule for an approach shot on Friday, yet on Saturday morning the PGA Tour released a statement saying it was overturning McCarthy’s penalty. This unprecedented ruling also came after Thomas was involved in a similar incident on Saturday morning. The statement cited confusion regarding the application and language of the new rule and said the Tour will work with the USGA and R&A to analyze and improve the situation with the rule. After all of the time the governing bodies spent revising the Rules of Golf for a 2019 rollout, how does an oversight like this happen?

Sens: It’s easy to jump all over the governing bodies for this (it’s very fashionable to do that these days). But no written rules, no matter how carefully considered, can account for every possibility that life throws at you. It happens in other sports. (Look at the NFL, grappling with questions about video review.) It happens in our legal system. If it now takes a prolonged time for the powers that be to get this particular rule straightened out, then we can all pile on them. But I don’t think it’s fair to do so now. 

Ritter: The spirit of the rule is obvious: they wanted to put an end to caddies lining up pro golfers as they stood over shots. It was, and is, a good idea. The failure was in the way the rule was written — the language around when a player begins to address the ball was vague, which created chaos and confusion. The lesson: always pay for good editors. 

Zak: The thing that the USGA and R&A didn’t really SEEM to take into account was how widely different interpretations could be made. I think that’s obviously a very tricky thing to do, so this is probably more of a shortcoming on their discussions with the various tours. Bottom line is we shouldn’t be getting surprised by these things. At least I don’t think we should be.

Meh, but they don't seem to have learned from their prior issues, do they?   John Wood is there for us once again, doing the job that the USGA and R&A won't do:

Wood: I could write six pages right now, but I won’t. The alignment rule is written poorly. It is an easy fix, however. “A caddie cannot stand directly behind his player with the intent of aiding him line up his upcoming shot.” Add intent. That’s all. There are many times a caddie will stand behind his player and most of them have nothing whatsoever to do with alignment. If we are in the trees, many times we will get behind them to look for a way out. “I see a seven-iron fitting through the small window right there.” Or if his ball comes to rest close to a tree and he wants us to check his backswing to see how much room he has to fit his swing and avoid hitting a branch, we stand behind him and let him know he needs to swing a little flatter or tell him he’s got plenty of room. We won’t stay back there during the shot but we will check him for sure. Add intent, and we are all done here. Let’s be honest, it’s an LPGA rule. In 23 years of caddying I’ve seen guys have their caddies line them up at this level maybe a handful of times, while it’s fairly prominent on the LPGA. The next rule that needs to be changed BACK is the one that says a player cannot replace a club that has been damaged in the normal course of play. I understand the guys at my local muni don’t have the luxury of having a backup driver in their locker, but every player on tour does. Quick. Name another major sport when a piece of broken equipment cannot be replaced. Flat tire at Daytona? Carry on, Mr. Logano. We are sorry, Mike Trout, that you cracked your bat here in the bottom of the 9th of the World Series, best of luck with the splinter. It makes no sense to me that if Dustin Johnson is leading the Masters by a shot and his driver face, through no fault of his own, cracks while he hits a drive on the 2nd hole, that he can’t replace it. With this change of rule, the USGA is setting itself up to be “The Story” again at a major championship. “Boy what would have happened had Dustin’s driver not cracked on him today and he was forced to play with just a 3-wood. We will never know.”

By the standards of these Interwebs, that's more like twelve pages.

As you know, I've not been a fan of the increasing reliance on intent, as it seems to provide a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card to the astute player.  To me, things are or are not violations...  for instance, let's take an imaginary player whom we'll call Bernhard.  To my way of thinking, the putter either is or isn't anchored against this imaginary player's body, and I don't really care what he says his intent was.

But it does seem to me that, as Woodie suggests, the rules-makers would benefit here from a clear statement of principal, to wit, that the caddie shall not align the player.  Interpretation will be required, but that's why the Decisions on the Rules of Golf is far longer than the rulebook itself.

It's of course ironic that this prcatice has never been an issue in the men's game, and there's a body of thought that it might have been better handled with a local rule in LPGA events.  Not only is it a non-factor in the men's game, but the video of the Li and McCarthy (I haven't seen the JT incident) are less than compelling, yet both major men's tours seemed over-eager to enforce the new rule.  Until, of course, a name brand was threatened....Quiet the mess they've created, but caddies should henceforth be nowhere near the line of play.

Golf In The Kingdom - I told you it was a crazy weekend....  OK, they did actually hold a golf tournament, and it was won by one of those highly immoral guys (per Eddie Pepperell) that cashed a big appearance fee check.  Here's a game story, should you be interested.

Club Pro Guy had this contribution to reasoned debate over the event:

I assume he's just bitter that he wasn't offered a seven-figure appearance fee.

Eamon Lynch is on the case as well, pulling no punches as you'll see:

“I’m not a politician, I’m a pro golfer,” said world No. 1 Justin Rose. 

“I’m not going to get into it,” echoed world No. 2 Brooks Koepka. 

“It’s my job to play golf,” offered Dustin Johnson, the world No. 3 who went on to win the tournament. 

While not wanting to get into his hosts having Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi dismembered and dissolved in a vat of acid, Koepka did publicly call out Bryson DeChambeau for taking too long to hit the ball. But then DeChambeau wasn’t paying his appearance fee.

I find it strange that we expect athletes to make our political statements for us, especially in the face of rank corruption in so many of the governing bodies (can you say FIFA?).  But Eamon was hardly

finished:

It was hardly a revelation that professional golfers are willing to be public-relations stooges for dictators and anti-democratic regimes if the price is right. After all, the game’s biggest stars flocked to South Africa during the apartheid era despite an international sporting boycott. Today’s stars can claim to be merely following the lead of the European Tour, which doesn’t apply a litmus test for democracy and human rights in setting a schedule that also includes Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Oman, Qatar and Turkey. 

European Tour CEO Keith Pelley defended the Saudi event, saying it was “transformational.” But then a bone saw and a vat of acid can be pretty transformational too. In the absence of standards at the tour, players are left to make their own choices.

I'm open to the concept that the Saudi's are a higher form of evil than the Turks and Chinese, but that's argument that needs to be made.  I enjoy cheap rhetorical flourishes as much as the next guy, you might have noticed my doing the same on countless occasions. 

This is ultimately an argument worth having, just I'd prefer not to lay it on the players.  They were put in an untenable position, then we criticize them for their actions or lack thereof.  I don't really care what athletes think about the great issues of the day, and I don't know why I should.

However, as if a paid agent of the evil Crown Prince, Sergio has endeavored to distract us from the evils of the Kingdom.  As you've no doubt heard, Sergio was DQ'd on Saturday, and the story was sufficiently muddled that we should review what it is that he did:

This would be a good time to review exactly what we know: It appears that Sergio was frustrated with the greens very early on in the week. Then, on Friday, Garcia was involved in a separate incident of slamming his club into a bunker out of frustration for the lie he had, one he believed was created by a previous group's poor raking of the sand. 

Then came Saturday’s incident. We don’t know if Garcia’s frustration in the third round was general or specific, but for whatever reason, he apparently decided to gouge a number of greens with his putter. According to The Scotsman’s Martin Dempster, Garcia actually damaged “no fewer than five greens.” At least four groups behind him complained, and after a conversation with European Tour CEO Keith Pelley, Garcia was DQ’d—a decision he said he “respected” while admitting to damaging “a couple of greens.” Dempster later went out on the course and found what he thought was one of Garcia’s divots on the sixth green:

All of this, every last bit of it, is completely and utterly nuts. If he had lost his cool and done this to one green, it would be a crazy story. The fact that Garcia did it reportedly to no fewer than five greens is frankly unbelievable. It shows an utter lack of self-control. It gives us a glimpse into Sergio’s soul that no temporary blow-up ever could, and what it shows is not flattering. 

It’s also—let’s just admit this—funny. Not everyone will agree with that last characterization, but it’s a universal law that the longer you picture a fuming professional golfer stalking from green to green on a mission of vengeance, slamming his putter into the innocent grass in what he feels is justified protest … well, the likelier it becomes that you’re going to laugh. And then you’ll think about it again and wonder if he was enduring some sort of breakdown, and then you’ll feel bad for laughing.

Is it funny?  Because I'm not seeing the humor in it....  Though I'm in complete agreement with his prior 'graph...

Here's another thought on the incident:

The competitor in Sergio Garcia got the best of him in Saudi Arabia. Can he undo the damage to his reputation?

I get that he was frustrated, but given that he was far out of contention, I fail to see why we would just chalk it up to his competitive spirit.

The problem of course is that we've seen this behavior from Sergio far too many times.  This example of peak Sergio hasn't gotten the play you'd expect:

But he was much younger then, and now happily married with baby Azalea, we all thought he had outgrown such nonsense.

And then comes this news:

Following his disqualification for "serious misconduct" at the Saudi International, the Scotsman reports Sergio Garcia will not face further suspension from the European Tour.

While there have been calls on social media to ban Garcia— who was accused by fellow golfers playing in groups behind him of purposely dragging the soles of his shoes into a handful of putting greens and not repairing a divot, causing damage to the putting surfaces—for various lengths of time, European Tour CEO Keith Pelley has decided the 2017 Masters champ won't face further discipline. 

"The incident is over,” Pelley said, according to the Scotsman. “We have dealt with it. Sergio has apologized to the players and we move on.”

Of course, this was said apology:

In a statement following the third round, Garcia said: “I respect the decision of my disqualification. I damaged a couple of greens, for which I apologize for, and I have informed my fellow players it will never happen again.”

A couple?  Back to the TC panel for their reactions, though the question itself might be the more interesting aspect:

3. Sergio Garcia was disqualified from the Saudi International on Saturday after he damaged several greens in frustration — one report said it was as many as five greens — and was slapped with a “serious misconduct.” James Corrigan of The Telegraph reported that the last “high-profile pro” to receive a misconduct charge was Simon Dyson in 2013. Dyson, who tapped down a spike mark on the green (which is now legal), was fined £30,000 and suspended two months. But Garcia will not be suspended, according to a report by Martin Dempster of The Scotsman. What should happen to Sergio for such a flagrant violation?

You got that?  Simon Dyson instinctively taps down a spike mark, and is suspended for two months.  Sergio spends 90 minutes deliberately damaging greens, and gets off with offering an apology that deliberately misstates the extent of his petulant behavior.  Gee, what could possibly account for this differing treatment?

Ritter: It’s hard to pass judgement without seeing a tape of the incidents. (And why are there no tapes? We need a separate Confidential for this.) Without knowing more, some kind of fine along with the DQ feels about right. 

Sens: A fine seems in order. How much of a fine? We might need a separate Confidential on that as well. 

Zak: Apparently there is no footage of it because Garcia’s tee time was too early, which is an all-too convenient excuse. What should happen? The Euro tour should release those tapes and let public opinion decide.

Those reactions seem oddly muted, no?  But Dylan Dethier seems closer to my own level of outrage:

Dethier: There are photos taken by the rules officials, which should be released. But that misses the point. Sergio was being paid a ton of money to go to a brand-new tournament at a brand-new golf course in a country that has never hosted a golf tournament — in the MIDDLE OF THE FREAKING DESERT — and he’s shocked that the greens aren’t perfect?! This is mind-blowing to me, and it’s childish, and the damage to his reputation is more important than any fine or suspension anyway.

Yup.  The man collected a big honkin' appearance fee to play in friggin' Saudi Arabia, and behaves like a five year old.  Maybe Eamon Lynch and other can take solace in what the Crown Prince got for his thirty pieces of silver.

I'm going to leave you there, as we've got 11" of fresh snow and I have a houseguest.  I'm quite aware of the passing of Alice Dye, and want to comment on that unencumbered by my disgust at our game's stewards.  See you tomorrow.