Go Time

Forgive me a little self-satisfaction....  With balls in the air in Farmingdale, I feel like I've already left it all on the field for you guys.... So just a few stray thoughts and then we can settle in to watch an obscene amount of golf.

Signage - If you've not yet had your fill of that Warning sign, you shortly will, as Geoff ventures into the merchandise tent:

Not even sure what these are... Coasters?  Bag tags?

This might be the best offering among this genus-species:

Though it seems to me that most purchasers of swag want said swag to be, you know, seen:

It's Hard Out There - After yesterday's golf, I was trying to explain to my playing partners what makes this track so difficult for guys like us.  The answer being, basically, everything.... Dylan Dethier comes at it from the perspective (mostly) of these....errrr....highly skilled golfers, though of course there's plenty of common ground.  This got me thinking:

THE BACK NINE STARTS FAST 

GOLF.com’s own Jeff Ritter ranked Nos. 10, 11 and 12 the third-, seventh- and second-hardest holes on the course, respectively. The brutish par-4s ensure that players begin the back nine with a grunt. No. 10 is 502 yards with a bunker-filled tee shot and a sloped green. No. 11 is “only” 435, but has a tight landing zone and two bunkers guard the green. And No. 12 is a 515-yard dogleg left with a blind approach shot. The hole yielded just 20 birdies in 2009. Hang on for dear life through this stretch.

Yeah, and add in the complicated logistics for those starting their day on No. 10....  Golf Channel covered this last night, but the player will go some 45 minutes or more from his last swing on the range until hitting his tee shot on No. 10.  Seems to me there's a built in advantage for those that start their afternoon round here.  

My other thought is that 15-17 is just as difficult a stretch, making the back nine kinda brutal....  yeah, they throw you a bone with the Par-5 13th and No. 14 might be the easiest of the Par-3's, but still...

More from Dylan:

10. IT’S A HIKE 

PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh said it best. “That warning sign is for real. It’s a big ol’ golf course, and you’ve got to be ready for it. It’s tackle football, both playing it and walking it.” It’s easy to make fun of “walking” being hard, but combined with the mental grind of prepping for and taking on a major, players will be worn all the way out by the time Sunday afternoon comes around, and jealously eyeing John Daly’s golf cart. 

Waugh summarized the course’s complete test on Tuesday. “The interesting thing is, nobody ever says it’s unfair. They say it’s a great test, and it’s a happy place. It is hard, but it’s fair and it’s in front of you and you understand it. You can’t beat it—but you can understand it.”

For the amateur, there's quite a few tee shots where the line is difficult to discern, and the punishment for missing is quite severe.

Alan, Asked -  A PGA-centric mailbag, with some fun stuff.  For instance, this guy is pining for 2023:

As a Rochester native who grew up often freezing his little tire gauge off late into spring, do you think the PGA of America fully understands that “not typical” and “not unusual” are not mutually exclusive and that they could get absolutely pantsed by Mother Nature here in May? -@Lou_TireWorld 

Thanks goodness the Long Island forecast has improved for the tournament rounds because a rainy Bethpage with temperatures in the high-40s woulda been miserable, and quite a disconcerting way for the PGA Championship to begin its new May time slot. 

As I’ve touched on elsewhere, I think the date change is great for the tournament in every other way, but the upcoming slate of Northeast venues is worrisome. They were locked in before the PGA Championship moved from August to May, and I’ve heard some rumblings that the leadership at Oak Hill (in Rochester) has had a few conversations with PGA officials about swapping out the 2023 Championship for a future Ryder Cup. Going forward I expect the PGA of America to be less Northeast-centric, but they can’t abandon this part of the country entirely, so we’re all going to have to get used to being at the mercy of the weather gods. Still, I greatly prefer chilly to stinking hot.

Can you say permafrost?  Am I the only one that still recoils in horror from my memories of 1995?  Discuss among yourselves whether Curtis Strange was the worst captain's pick ever....

On this one we can only hope:

The August date led to numerous first time major winners and lots of younger champs, possibly due to heat and humidity impact. Will the move to May lead to more “stars” winning who had geared up for the Masters?-@MikeCronin12 

This is an interesting point, but I don’t think proximity to the Masters is the key factor. The August heat forced the host venue’s greens to be heavily watered and thus made them soft, so the PGA Championship setup was often similar to everyday Tour conditions. This helps explain the glut of random champions. Firm, fast greens very quickly separate the best players from those who are just hanging on. I do think that May will allow for sterner setups, which should favor the stars, who become exactly that because they can handle more exacting conditions.

Would it be impolite to mention the insanity of going to Atlanta, Kiawah and St. Louis in August?  You're asking for sub-optimal conditions, not to mention the eye candy of seeing physical specimins such as Lumpy and Marc Leishman in a wet golf shirt....

This is Brooksian in its math:

What percentage of the field believes they have a legit chance? And if Koepka overpowers the course he’s the best in the world, right? #askalan -@MarVistaPete 

In a podcast last year Brendan Steele told me he thinks 50% of the Tour is afraid of

winning. This week you can add two dozen club pros who know they don’t have a prayer. Throw in the pressure of a major championship, the brutality of Bethpage, the intimidation factor of a mouthy gallery and we’re quickly down to maybe a quarter of the field who truly believe they can do it. That’s 40 guys. A third to a half of them won’t have their A-game this week, just because that’s golf. So, if you’re an elite player with some actual confidence, you only have to beat a couple dozen colleagues to win the PGA Championship! Per Brooks, are we still debating his place in the game? He’s the best player in golf until proven otherwise.

Did Brendan indicate in which half he resides?  

Not sure I agree with Alan on the next few:

What makes a major distinct from other PGA tournaments? In tennis, a Grand Slam differs in number of players, number of sets, different surfaces and different continents. In golf? -@PeteKnot 

More than anything, it’s history and tradition. The course conditions of the Scottish Open are pretty much the same as what we get at the Open Championship a week later, but it’s not the Scottish that led to Bobby Jones’s deification, compelled Ben Hogan and Arnie Palmer to cross the ocean chasing history, birthed Seve and witnessed some of Jack and Tiger’s defining moments. 

Strength of field is part of what makes the majors momentous, but the cast of characters is as deep at the WGCs as at the Masters; the difference is all the ghosts rattling around Augusta National. Tough setups define the U.S. Open, though you can say the same about Valspar and the Honda Classic. It all comes down to the mystique of the majors – as the game has changed and evolved these are the four tournaments that have stood the test of time and always gathered the best players on the best courses. That’s why we care about them as the measuring stick of true greatness.

Alan seems to me to be missing the obvious point.  The other three majors differ dramatically in set-up from the week-to-week norm.  Also, the WGC's have top-tier talent, but the small fields and no cuts make them just easy money and world ranking points grabs.

To me the question this begs is, given the PGA's positioning as a U.S. Open-lite, how does it effectively differ from a run-of-the-mill Tour event?  And does that account for the higher number of uninspiring champions?  And, just one more, is it easier to create said separation with a May date?

This one is an obvious slam dunk for Alan:

With everybody on Grand Slam watch at the PGA Championship; who is greatest player (with three of the four) never to win the Grand Slam? #AskAlan -@GolfFoodAddict 

Sam Snead. The precision and patience demanded by the U.S. Open exposed the lack of discipline and course management in this awesome natural talent. Tom Watson and Arnold Palmer both have arguably superior c.v.’s to Snead, but failing to win the PGA Championship is not the same kind of indictment of a player. If you have the talent and mental toughness to win a U.S. Open, you’re certainly good enough to win a PGA Championship. They just never made it happen.

Young Tom Morris?  Harry Vardon?  Bobby Jones....

Trinity Forest, site of the AT&T Byron Nelson, looks absolutely dreadful on television. Can you think of a course that looks as bad? -@JoeGunter 

The Old Course. Other than 1 and 18, framed as they are by the auld grey toon, it’s a moonscape whose charm and subtleties don’t really translate well to TV.

Troon also shows quite the lack of curb appeal...  Although eye of the beholder rules apply for sure...

Shane Ryan makes a fun case for more sinister courses, with this amusing lede:

At the catacombs of Paris, where you can view the skulls and femurs of about six million dead Frenchmen whose bones were moved to the cool, damp underground ossuary by covered wagon when cemeteries across the city began collapsing in the late 1700s,

there’s a sign carved in stone above the doorway leading to the macabre displays:

“Arrete! C’est Ici L’Empire De La Mort” 

It means, “Stop! This is the empire of the dead,” and it sets the mood immediately. Passing through that threshold, you are a little bit scared, a little bit titillated. And when I hear the name “Bethpage Black,” site of this weekend’s PGA Championship, my mind always goes back to the catacombs, because Bethpage has a menacing sign too. It’s slightly more understated, but it conveys a similar message: 

“WARNING,” it begins, in bold red font. “The Black Course Is An Extremely Difficult Course Which We Recommend Only For Highly Skilled Golfers.”

The endless trudging of beaten golfers up the hill to the 18th green is very much a zombie apocalypse of sorts.   Shane makes an impassioned case for sure:

But frankly, one week isn’t enough. When you think about the emotions evoked by the various golf courses of the PGA Tour and beyond, you think of reverence (Augusta National), awe (Pebble) and, I don’t know, eucalyptus (Riviera). The Spanish moss lends a nice southern gothic vibe to Sea Island, and saguaro cacti in the rough give the desert courses an otherworldly aura, but none of them quite reach the standard of “existential terror” that I crave. Professional golfers should be sent not just on physical and linear journeys every day, but on emotional odysseys that test the limits of their sanity. If you’re going to cut somebody a million dollar check on Sunday, shouldn’t he have to slay some psychological demons along the way? 

It should be pointed out, too, that golf is one of the few sports where venue-based intimidation is even possible. Sure, it’s hard to play in the freezing snow at Lambeau Field, or to win a basketball game at Cameron Indoor Stadium, but that has more to do with the elements and the fans than the arenas themselves. In the end, Lambeau Field is a 120-yard expanse of grass, and Cameron Indoor Stadium is a hard court with two regulation basketball hoops at either end. Bethpage Black is its own special animal, unlike any other golf course in existence, and so laden with snares, intentional and otherwise, that even experts can’t begin to identify them all. There are holes on this course where the average scores in the ’02 U.S. Open were closer to bogey than par, and whoever emerges as a winner on Sunday will have survived rather than conquered.

Is he angling for a desk at the USGA?   One caveat, though, is that Shane is likely too young to remember those dreadfully boring U.S. Opens of the Tom Meeks era.  

Back to Alan:

How many short hitters do not feel they have a chance this week? -@CarsleyGolf 

Most. And they are at a decided disadvantage on such a brawny course. But if the likes of Zach Johnson can win at Augusta National and St. Andrews, anything is possible.

The one constant from players' comments thus far this week is the need to hit fairways, and a guy like Zach is worse at that than you'd expect (72nd on Tour this season, not good when you're 172nd in driving distance).  His Masters happened under favorable conditions for him, when it was sufficiently cold and windy that the rest of the guys couldn't reach the Par-5's....  and Alan's perception of The Old is dated.  It used to be a bombers paradise, because only they could carry the trouble.....Now even Sign Boy can.

In The Beginning - Meet Dave Catalano, who deserves much of the credit for making that 2002 Open happen.  John Feinstein pens this tribute, but goes back to the very beginning:

And, while a lot of people deserve a lot of credit for that Open, David Fay, the former 

David Fay.

USGA executive director who first hatched the idea of bringing a major championship to Bethpage’s Black course, says quite simply, “We couldn’t have put it [the Open] on without Dave Catalano.” 

It was Fay, who on a whim pulled off the Southern State Parkway en route to a dinner party on Long Island in 1995, jumped a fence and began walking the Black course. Two friends—Metropolitan Golf Association executive director Jay Mottola and top local amateur George Zahringer—had told Fay he should consider the Black as a U.S. Open site, even though the golf course was in awful condition. 

Fay walked three holes while the sun was setting and thought, This is OK. Then he got to the fourth hole, with its famous cross bunkers and it’s winding uphill route to the green. “That’s when I got it,” Fay said years later. “From then on, I was hooked.” 

Fay returned to his office and dashed off a memo to this staff. The first sentence said: “I have a dream.”

It's hard to remember what a huge deal this was....  and while the events themselves have been tormented by weather, the result was a major improvement in conditioning for the golfing public.

Eamon, Still En Fuego -  Eamon's Christmas card list must be getting awfully short these days:

Eamon's Corner: PGA causes wreck by allowing John Daly to use cart

I think the wreck was really inviting former champions.   By the way, did you know that their Masters-envy also has them holding a champions dinner on Tuesday night?  I know, how desperate can you get?  I just don't get why Rich Beem and Shaun Micheel can't just text each other.....

Picks, Schmicks - We've heard from most everybody on this, including both guys that didn't pick Koepka....  But the Golf.com gang added their longshots, some of which are actually pretty long:

Jessica Marksbury: Rob Labritz. Ever heard of him? You will! The club pro from GlenArbor has been prepping for this moment for years. He’s a three-time winner of the New York State Open, which is contested every year at the Black. He may have more competitive rounds there than anyone else in the field. I doubt there’s any player who knows the course better. We usually wonder if a club pro can even make the cut at the PGA, but this year, I’m looking at Labritz to contend.

Good guy and good player, but this is really a big ask..... Do we think this guy actually knew how to spell his pick's name?

Josh Sens: Lucas Bjerregaard. Not a ton of starts on Tour in his young career but he’s shown well on a number of big stages. A good week at Augusta. A strong weekend at the Players. And a win over Tiger in match play in Austin.

he had quite the day in Austin, introducing himself to and then beating two of his golfing heroes (the second was Stenson).   But that's fickle match play....

I'll lump the next few together for obvious reasons:

Pat Ralph: Lucas Glover. Glover came out on top at Bethpage in the 2009 U.S. Open, the last time the course hosted a major championship. Plus, he’s got four top-10 finishes this season. Having that course knowledge and experience of winning at Bethpage could prove to be crucial.

Michael Bamberger: Lucas Glover. Playing so well, good BPB vibes, overdo for a week where it all comes together. Plus, he’s a pleasure to root for.

Luke Kerr-Dineen: Lucas Glover. He’s been one of the low-key most consistent players on Tour this season. He’s clocked 11 top 15s in 15 starts with just three missed cuts. That’s the form of a guy who’s ready to win. And why not this week? After all, he was the dark horse who rode through a soggy Bethpage to capture the 2009 US Open.

That's a lot of love for a guy to whom the ensuing decade has been harsh, and violates the properties of lightning as I understand the matter.  

Others of whom you've probably not thought:

Jonathan Wall: Max Homa. If he can stare down the competition and win at Quail Hollow — one of the toughest courses on Tour — I think he can replicate the feat at Bethpage. Homa plays with no fear, and you need that kind of swagger to win a major.

Dylan Dethier: Louis Oosthuizen. He’s a top driver of the golf ball and has elite touch around the greens, and I loved his T2 at the Valspar, which is about as close as Florida gets to a major-type setup. (Take that, Sawgrass!) Like Woods, he hasn’t played since Augusta — making him extra sleepy. Value at 60-1.

Two guys that have each won exactly once in their careers.... I know, more of an indictment of the latter for sure.

Sean Zak: Emiliano Grillo. Don’t ask why. Just watch him finish in the top 20.

Given that you're supposed to tell without making us ask, I'm happy to let this one pass.

There was a vote for Stenson and Justin Harding as well, though perhaps they should be clearer on the mandate.  I'd think they're looking for sleepers to actually contend, though Sean Zak is going for a back door Top 20.

Enjoy the golf and hope they dodge any more rain.