Late Week Lamentations

A few items to amuse, and then I'll let you get on with your long weekend. 

The Era of Good Feelings Continues - For that Jordan guy, in any event:

Over the last few months, Jordan Spieth has been preaching "progress," adamant that his game would soon come around. On Thursday at Colonial, where Spieth picked up the

eighth of his 11 career PGA Tour victories in 2016, he saw the latest sign of that progress in the form of a five-under 65, putting him one off the lead. 

"I know my game has been progressing," said Spieth, who finished T-3 at the PGA Championship last week, his best finish of the season. "I've been saying that for the last month or six weeks or so. Results just end up coming when I actually start playing better golf. Simply put, that's just what I've been doing. Been a little bit better off the tee and into the greens and I've been a lot better on and around the greens." 

Spieth was more than "a lot better on the greens" on Thursday. Despite being one of the best putters on tour his entire career, he put together the best putting performance of his career in his opening round, making over 150 feet of putts. If he rolls it half as good as that over the next three rounds, he'll be in good shape. 

"Ultimately I just stay the course and not stress too much about results and let them come to me."

What, me worry?  It would be a severe blow to these pages should Jordan return to 2015-2017 form, as the contrast between his happy talk and actual play has been good, low-impact blogging....  But I'm prepared to make that sacrifice, yanno, to help grow the game.

Here's another take on that great day on the greens:

Doesn't suck.

Joel Beall tells us all we need to know about the leader:

If you're wondering why a player of prodigious talent like Tony Finau has a lone PGA

Tour win to his record (at an alternate event, no less), a glance at his short-game statistics should deliver the answer. Though few are better off the tee than Big Tone, the 29-year-old has ranked outside the top 100 in strokes gained/putting in four of the last five seasons. 

It was a deficiency that was also on display last week at the PGA Championship. Out of the 82 players who made the weekend at Bethpage Black, Finau ranked 79th in sg/putting with a -4.741 figure (yes, that's a negative 4.741).

So, is there any reason to think that this is anything more than a good day on the greens for the pride of Salt lake City?  Maybe...

So what spurred the success on the greens? According to Finau, a switch to his putting grip. 

"I haven't been putting great I feel like, and standing over the ball the most important thing is, Do you feel like you're going to make the putt or not?," Finau said after his round. "Outside of everything else, Do you believe you can make the putt? So for me, I needed to switch something." 

Finau went to the "claw" style, a grip he had messed with earlier in his career. Clearly the move was prudent, currently ranking sixth in sg/putting on the day.

The usual caveats about sample size aside, we saw Justin Rose elevate his game with this very same move and, perhaps, Phil as well.  A guy like Tony only has to turn himself into an average putter, so stay tuned.

Given our focus on the dark art of putting, Shack had an especially appropriate quote as his header today:

Hitting a golf ball and putting have nothing in common. They’re two different games. You work all your life to perfect a repeating swing that will get you to the greens, and then you have to try to do something that is totally unrelated. BEN HOGAN

On a related subject, I had been reliably informed not to mess with Texas, though it appears that Jay Monahan did not get that memo.  But mess with Texas they did in the new schedule...  The Houston event now sleeps with the fishes, and the Fort Worth double-header is now split up by the May PGA Championship. 

For these events to survive, they'll need to up their games and find ways to induce players to rack up some frequent flyer miles.  This event has a new, deep-pocketed sponsor in Charles Schwab, who seems to get the marketing thing quite well:

Charles Schwab has been challenging the status quo in the financial services industry on behalf of investors since 1973. Now, as the title sponsor of the Charles Schwab

Challenge — a PGA TOUR event that has challenged the world’s top shot-makers for 73 years — the company is celebrating that “challenger spirit” by unveiling a one-of-a-kind prize for the champion of this year’s event: a restored 1973 Dodge Challenger. 

The car — a restomod “Schwab Challenger” that mixes a vintage body with modern comfort, performance and reliability — is covered in custom Glacier Blue paint, with one-off Schwab badging. It also features touches of Colonial’s trademark Scottish royal tartan on the seats, serving as a tribute to the awarding of a tartan plaid jacket to the event’s champions and top committee chairs.

Restomod?  Never mind, but good to see them injecting some fun into the proceedings....

A Cautionary Tale -  I readily admit that I've reached the "Get off my lawn" stage of life, so keep that in mind for this item.  But am I the only one that has severe misgivings about the PGA Tour's open-mouth kiss of legalized gambling? 

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan understands what’s at stake for golf with the

legalization of sports gambling. 

Speaking at the Sports Business Awards Wednesday night, Monahan implied the Tour is working on new gambling developments that will be announced by the end of the year.

“We’ve spent a lot of time over the last two and a half years clearly understanding all of our options and getting ourselves in a position where we can participate,” Monahan said. “Participate with the right partners, and participate in a way that we think resonates with fans. Without getting in front of it, I think you can expect to hear developments from us in the second half of this year.”

Their hand has been forced by that recent Supreme Court decision, but I find the Tour's pursuit of the vig quite unseemly. 

Legalized sorts betting has been rolling out more slowly than expected, and I disagree with this as well:

Few sports are in better position to capitalize on legalized betting from a viewership standpoint. There’s an endless amount of matchups and prop bets with as many as 125 players teeing it up each week, opening the door for split screen broadcasts and the potential to change the way golf is consumed with an a la carte broadcast experience.

Yes, you could bet on whether a Tour rabbit will hit the green from 233 yards out on a Par-5 at The Quad Cities Open, although why you would do that escapes me.  But that guy that needs action in the afternoon in a sports book in Walla Walla, WA might be betting the rent money, and why should our gentlemen's game be taking a cut of his action?

Monahan is continually trying to get ahead of the issue to ensure the Tour is in position to maximize the benefits. 

“There’s so many different points of entry, from operators to daily fantasy to just games within broadcasts that are non-betting games, just to the way you orient yourself understanding the way people are consuming information,” Monahan said.

It puts the Tour in bed with unseemly elements, the Billy Walters of this world, and making money off gamblers' addiction seems like a bad look.

Mikey Likes It - Mike Bamberger is a grizzled veteran of golf writing, whose work I've enjoyed over the years (most notably this book).  Mike does an occasional column on the seven best things in golf, and this week's installment is a bit of a puzzler.

For instance, this ode to Retief Goosen:

6. Perfection

Speaking of Hall of Famers: Retief Goosen, who turned 50 in February, is playing this week in his first Senior PGA, and next week he is getting inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame, along with Jan Stephenson, Billy Payne, Dennis Walters and Peggy Kirk

Bell. Goosen, on the range hitting balls in shorts, stopped traffic. Literally, other players, walking by, stopped now and again to watch him make just a single swing. It is just about perfect. I don’t know what his short game is like, but in terms of his length and the quality of his strike, he looks like an elite Tour player. 

Of the Hall of Famers going in this year, the only one with a better swing is Walters, a trick-shot artist paralyzed from the waist down who plays out of swiveling chair attached to a cart. “I’ve seen video of it,” Goosen said. “It’s an amazing swing but the most amazing thing is how he has taken his disability, that cart accident that cut short his playing career, and turned it into a different kind of career.” 

It’s a particularly interesting class, the fivesome going in this year.

The case for the South African as an HoFer is along the lines of, "Well, since we let Freddie and Monty in....", which leaves me cold.  A nice player, for sure, but we've been grading on a curve for years now....

But while I agree that this year's class is interesting, it's also quite embarrassing...   Don't get me wrong, Billy Payne, Peggy Kirk Bell and Dennis Walters are all very interesting folks who are deserving of recognition for their contributions to our game.  I don't know if full enshrinement is the answer, though, because the concept of Dennis Walters' bust next to Hogan and Jones seems a bit off, but that's a rather minor quibble.

Obviously missing from this year's class is any supreme golfing talent, which I naively thought was the objective of the Hall.   As for Stephenson, surely you jest?  The woman's signature moment in golf was sitting butt-naked in a tub of golf balls....

Hey, at least they weren't Top-Flites....That would have been uncomfortable.

Mike also had this ode to Oak Hill:

4. Memories

Oak Hill is where Jason Dufner won the 2013 PGA Championship. Shaun Micheel won the PGA 10 years before that. Jack Nicklaus won the 1980 PGA at Oak Hill. Cary

Middlecoff, Lee Trevino and Curtis Strange won U.S. Opens on it. It’s easy to get Oak Hill and Oakmont and Oakland Hills confused, but not if you know the courses. Oak Hill is one of the best in the world because it can be a great and enjoyable golf experience for any level of player, and it can be as demanding a course as any in the world. It’s simple, really—and beautiful. It was neat to see Micheel on the course, late Wednesday afternoon, just the golfer and his caddie. You can imagine where his thoughts might roam. It was neat to see Kerry Haigh of the PGA of America, standing on a tee for a solid 10 minutes, just looking, thinking about different scenarios and possibilities. Rory McIlroy described Haigh last week as the best course-setup person in the game. He obviously loves his work, and is happy to be in the background. 

3. Clubhouse treasure

The Oak Hill clubhouse has a bowling alley. Also, Claude Harmon’s 1948 Masters jacket! One of Claude’s sons, Craig, was the longtime head pro at Oak Hill. Who knows how much Augusta National would like to have that wooly coat, with a couple moth holes in it, back? But that’s not happening. Talk about a treasure.

It's a great club for sure, though also a reminder of the squandered economic fortunes of upstate New York.  But also a reminder that the PGA will return here in May 2023, and Mike might want to pack his long johns for that one.

Speaking of Long John, behold the effortless segue, he's doing his thing in Rochester this week:

John Daly gets party started in Rochester for Senior PGA at Oak Hill

It's Rochester, so I can only hope that they're partying like it's 1899...

Have you ever asked yourself, "What could be worse than John Daly tooling around walking-only Bethpage Black in a golf cart?"  Of course you have, and we have an answer, John Daly tooling around an historic golf club....in shorts:

Haven't we suffered enough?

As for this, Just.Say. No.

R&A still mulling John Daly’s cart request for British Open

 Please.

Copying My Signature Move - Alex Myers is a young gun that writes a weekly feature for Golf Digest called The Grind.  It'll seem familiar to you, because he basically steals others' work and adds a snarky comment or two.  I know, but I didn't protect my intellectual property....

In any event, this week's installment has it's moments... Like this one:

Seriously, this is the best explanation for Brooks hopping on the back-nine bogey train on Sunday. Through the first two rounds, Koepka’s handicap differential was an absurd plus-13.5. You can’t give that many shots if you want to win the net division of the Seminole member-guest.

Heh.  Gotta admit, that's pretty good...  Though Alex, if you're gonna be a grown up golf writer, you need to know that Seminole's event is a Member-Pro.  A very different animal indeed....

This was good as well:

Harold Varner III lost a ball after yanking a shot from the high rough on Sunday, and Koepka did that thing where he pretended to look for his opponent’s ball.

Damn you, Alex, there goes another of my signature moves...

Don't Know Much About History - Shack posts this video about C.B. Macdonald's epic Lido Golf Club, that aired during the CBS coverage of the PGA:

It's arguably the most famous lost golf course ever.  Interestingly, Mike Keiser's original idea for the golf course that became Old Macdonald (in which he made Tom Doak bring Jim Urbina back into the fold) was to recreate The Lido....  That idea was discarded as impractical... we can only hope that it's not fully discarded in Keiser's mind.

Also via Shack comes news of a two-parter on Golf Channel on Mr. Hogan:

Hogan: Monday-Tuesday, June 17-18, 9 p.m. ET 

Hogan (trailer), a two-part biopic on 64-time PGA TOUR winner Ben Hogan chronicles one of the greatest comeback stories in sports history, reflecting on the Texan’s indelible impact on professional golf in spite of a near-fatal automobile accident that put the prime years of his career in serious jeopardy. Coming from humble beginnings, the film examines Hogan’s incredible journey to becoming one of the greatest golfers of all-time, serving as the inspiration for the 1951 motion picture “Follow the Sun”. Being presented with limited commercial interruption by Charles Schwab, Hogan’s two parts – Monday night’s “Perseverance” and Tuesday night’s “Perfection” – will be narrated by Emmy Award-winning actor Kyle Chandler, and be produced for GOLF Films by 13-time Emmy Award winner Israel DeHerrera.

Trailer can be found here.

I shall release you here, and hope to see you back early next week.  Enjoy your holiday weekend.