Weekend Wrap

It's one of those fake but accurate headers....  At most, we'll deal with the weekend's action in passing...

Car Talk - Kevin Na fans might be a bit disappointed at the lack of respect paid, but I saw less than five minutes of it.  I needed a week off from televised golf, not least to have a clear head for the men's NCAA's.

This seems to be the most important takeaway from the weekend:

FORT WORTH, Texas – The worst car that veteran caddie Kenny Harms ever owned was a green 1973 Chevy Camaro. He paid $200 for it and soon nicknamed it the Putty Box because that’s the material he kept using to fix the rust. 

Kevin, shouldn't you be in the passenger seat?

On Sunday, Harms became the owner of another car built in 1973. This one’s considerably more valuable … and certainly more significant, as it comes courtesy of his man Kevin Na, who romped to a four-shot victory at the Charles Schwab Challenge. 

Among the perks for winning at Colonial are a plaid jacket, the Texas-sized Leonard trophy, a permanent spot on the Wall of Champions and a hefty check. This year, another perk was added – a 1973 blue Dodge Challenger to commemorate the year the Charles Schwab company was founded. 

It’s a unique prize, one that Na remembers hearing about months ago. Harms was equally aware of it too, and during a recent promotional piece on the car for the Caddie Network, he had a message for Na: “You wouldn’t really look so great in this but I will. I should I get the car if you win.” 

Then on Tuesday during the practice round, they spotted the Challenger sitting just off the 10th fairway.

This local boy had a disappointing Sunday, though as regards happy talk he's still a +10:

Spieth missed three cuts and never finished better than T35 in his first eight starts of the season, but he’s finished in the top 30 in five of his last six starts. That includes his T3 at

the PGA Championship last week. He’s back at it again for the Memorial Tournament next week. 

“I think I made progress this week, and I know exactly what I need to work on before I start on Thursday next week in my swing to make it even better,” he said. “I have kind of been moving between a couple different swings through this week, and the one I had today is the right move. I’ve just got to get some repetitions in with it to fine-tune it. It was the best I drove the ball for sure. It’s just the shots I missed were because I overdid what I was trying to do. I didn’t trust I was doing it right. So when I look back it’s just frustrating to be a few over on the round when I feel like I was actually swinging the club pretty well.”

Gotta admit, too much of a good thing is a new one...  Kinda like the porridge being too hot or too cold.

Playing Wolf -  Did you catch any of the men's NCAA's last night?  It's good stuff, that only gets better the next two days....  Not sure anyone can hang with Oklahoma State these days, due partially to this kid and his rather odd swing:

Oklahoma State’s Matthew Wolff finished the season the same way he started: as a champion. 

The Cowboy sophomore, who set a program record earlier this season with five wins, added a sixth victory to his glowing record at the 2019 NCAA Div. I Men’s Golf Championship, winning the individual national title at 10-under par. Wolff is Oklahoma State’s ninth individual champion, and first since Jonathan Moore in 2006. 

“These are the best amateurs in the world and to come out on top is really something special,” said Wolff. “Most other college events you only get five or six really good teams. This has all the best players and teams so this means a lot.”

They're the top seed in team match play as well, so don't tune in if you have an aversion to orange.

We had an afternoon event at our club, so I didn't get to my TV until it was pretty much over.  But fortunately we were treated to some bonus golf:

It couldn’t have happened any other way. 

After winning a five-player playoff against Clemson, the SMU men’s golf team – the 30th seed out of 30 teams at the 2019 NCAA Men’s Div. I Golf Championship – placed in the top eight to qualify for match play. 

“We were the 30th seed here, and to make it to match play without a little number by our name, it’s just meant to be,” said SMU head coach Jason Enloe. “It wouldn’t have been fitting if it wasn’t hard. It’s been a hard year for everybody.”

Oh, sure it could have....In fact, when this happened it seemed inevitable that it would end in tears:

I'm glad the kid won't live the rest of his life with that memory, but their prize for prevailing is a date with the men in orange....which I've been reliably informed is the new black.

Give it a watch today, as team match play rocks.

CC of Charleston, A Preview - The men will be at Jack's Joint, and there's nothing wrong with that venue or event.  But I've long believed that the lesser tours, no disrespect intended, could do themselves a world of good to play at more interesting venues, and the USGA seems to have taken this advice to heart:

In the case of the Country Club of Charleston, it comes as no surprise that one of America’s most preservation-minded cities has as its namesake a golf course that in the last few decades has become increasingly conscientious about honoring its architectural roots. 

A byproduct of that commitment to preservation means the club will become the first Seth Raynor-designed golf course to host a U.S. Golf Association Open championship, with the playing of the 74th U.S. Women’s Open beginning May 30. 

“It’s wonderful that the American public will finally get to see all these holes – that are national treasures – in a national championship-caliber setting,” said Kyle Franz, the designer charged with leading the club’s latest restoration. 

Organized in 1900, the club relocated to a tract of land on James Island with a commanding view of the Charleston peninsula in South Carolina and its historic harbor by the early 1920s. Open, gently rolling land defined by few trees and Low Country marshes encouraged ocean breezes to dictate constantly shifting conditions.

Apparently Raynor got the gig for all the wrong reasons, though it worked out just fine:

Thanks to a recommendation from the Olmsted Brothers landscape architecture firm, the club selected the less expensive (and more readily available) Seth Raynor over Donald Ross in 1923 to design the course.

Almost a home game for Ross, so qite the upset....

Thanks to ongoing communication between Boatwright and Charlton deSaussure Jr., his historian counterpart at Yeamans Hall Club, another Charleston-area Raynor design from the mid-1920s, a treasure trove of archival materials emerged in 2015 from the National Park Service and the Frederick Law Olmsted Archive in Brookline, Mass. 

The greatest catch of all was a full course plan from 1923, drawn by the Olmsteds using Raynor’s original plans and approved by Raynor. Having restored much of the course to the 1938 aerial in 2006, the club decided to go a step further and build or reconstruct numerous fairway bunkers from Raynor’s original plan under the guidance of Franz beginning in 2016. 

However, after two major course shutdowns in the previous two decades, the shifting approach to restoration took on a new dimension. This time the club decided on “targeted restoration,” focusing on one small project at a time, building more organically.

Overseen by Brian Silva, an impassioned supporter of the work of the Macdonald/Raynor/Banks troika....

Via Shack, we also have this preview video of the course from the No Laying Up gang.

Fox has the coverage, so you'll have to remind yourselves of FS1's location on your cable guide, though you'd need that in a few weeks anyway.

For fans of the Augusta National Women's Amateur and the Women's NCAA's, you'll no doubt appreciate this pairing:

Good news golf fans, Augusta National stars Jennifer Kupcho and Maria Fassi will make 

their pro debuts competing alongside each other at next week’s U.S. Women’s Open. 

The USGA announced that Kupcho, Fassi and amateur Sierra Brooks will play together in the first two rounds at Country Club of Charleston. 

Fassi comes into the event fresh off an NCAA individual title at home in Arkansas while Kupcho and Wake Forest came up just shy of the team title, falling in tightly-contested championship match to Duke. 

Brooks, a rising senior at Florida, finished runner-up to Fassi at the Blessings Golf Course.

The USGA has taken all sorts of heat for venue decisions for their marquee championship, but have hit quite a few home runs with their other championships (think Chicago Golf Club, The National, Quaker, as well as future Walker Cupa at Seminole and Cypress Point).  

On Language -  The estimable Mike Bamberger takes on the language of golf, and earns bonus points for his Strunk & White reference.  That said, the effort is ultimately unsatisfying, despite some very good bits:

Yes, a par 5. Not a 5 par. Blech. Also grating is three-shotter, two-shotter and one-shotter. And who needs the new penalty area when hazard conveyed it all? As Strunk & White say in Elements of Style, “Be clear.” That doesn’t mean be literal. Golf requires a measure of irony, which is why any body of water, including a gunky Ohio pond on a pitch-shot par 3, may be referred to as a lake. Here are the exceptions that prove the rule: the ocean to the left of 18 at Pebble and the burn crossing the first on the Old Course. Show some respect: Swilcan Burn is not a lake. 

Allow for regional preferences. What the Scots call a bunker, Texans call a trap. The rest of us don’t have to make a long-term commitment to either word. I liked medal play, common now only in the British Isles. Its replacement, stroke play, is less evocative but simpler. I hope its rise doesn’t come at the expense of medalist, even though the awarding of medals at club events is rare these days. (Everybody wants shop credit.) Along those same lines, alternate shot is preferable to foursomes. We’re not trying to scare people away here. For the newly arrived, you’ll know a three-finger cut shot when you see it.

I probably disagree with more than half of his citations, but it's good fun despite, or perhaps because, of that.  I do love his reaction to the B-word:

The first job of language is to share information. With that in mind, avoid barranca, as it raises more questions than it answers. Ditch, happily, does not. And if you want to know about another golfer, don’t ask for his handicap. Try this instead: What can he shoot?

That last bit is spot on as well....  As for this, we'll agree to disagree.

The USGA, in the new-for-’19 rulebook, has cut all references to dormie. Good riddance. I never felt secure about using the word, even after reading up on its French roots. (From dormir, to sleep.) Caddie is also from the French (cadet) and generally is best as a six-letter word, though a movie called Caddieshack would have died on the vine.

I've noted on several occasions that the USGA will have to pry "dormie" from my cold, dead hands.....More importantly, the inherent confusion inherent in the term I find a feature, not a bug.

 But what's missing from Mike's account is that language develops organically over the decades (centuries?), and it's borderline outrageous that the governing bodies think they can snap their fingers and replace hazard with penalty area.  They're turning their back on a sacred heritage of our game, and that they don't see it as something to be preserved speaks very poorly of them.

Also, that they don't see the pleasure to be had in arguing over these terms with guys like Mike Bamberger.  After all, he's gone to the trouble to compile a list of terms to be avoided:

These terms are pretentious and should be avoided: hole location, green complex, signature hole, double cross, overseeding, C.O.R., learning center, practice tee, links-style, second-shot course, Championship Course. Traj. Also: to cover. (“He’s got 210 to cover.”) While we’re at it: Mr. Hogan, Mr. Palmer, etc. If you’re almost 10 and want Big Jack’s autograph, yes, Mr. Nicklaus is fine and appropriate. But if you’re at the bar and talking about Hogan, just say Hogan. I once heard Tiger refer to him as Ben and some graybeards-in-training started clearing their throats. Please. We’re all just human beings on this green earth trying to get a small ball into a distant hole. Sunday at Augusta, Tiger recalled “Arnold” blowing the ’61 tournament, and it was wonderful.

Well, links-style for sure....

Memorial Day -  We'll make our first foray into Sunday Night's Tour Confidential confab, which includes a guest commentator:

1. Tiger Woods came into the PGA Championship as the betting favorite but shot 72-73 to miss the cut. He has a phenomenal track record at this week’s Memorial, including five wins, but should he be the favorite after his performance at Bethpage?

Jack Nicklaus, Memorial host and 18-time major winner: I don’t think Tiger’s performance at Bethpage has anything to do with how he will play this week at Muirfield Village. He was a month removed from the Masters when he came to Bethpage. Tiger

had a natural reaction from winning the Masters and it takes a while to get over it. He hadn’t won a major in almost 11 years, and I am sure that sort of played into what happened at Bethpage. I think you will see a different, ready-to-play Tiger this week at the Memorial Tournament. 

Sean Zak: While I’d like to consider the Bethpage performance to be an outlier for Tiger, in the same way Shinnecock was a year ago, to be the favorite is asking a bit much. Two competitive rounds in the last month and a half. And after a weekend full of #TigerJam hosting duties? I’m a doubter. 

John Wood: I’m gonna go way out on a limb here and say… maybe? I don’t think Tiger would ever look past this event. It is, after all, Jack’s place, and when you grow up with his accomplishments tacked to your wall, I’m sure it gets his juices flowing. That being said, I would bet everything he is doing right now physically, mentally and emotionally has to do with being as prepared as possible for Pebble Beach in a few weeks.

All-Tiger, All The Time.... I see no reason why we should take this more seriously than he himself will.   As Woodie notes, this about showing up at Pebble with his golf feelz in place...

This next one is even sillier:

2. When designing Muirfield Village, Jack Nicklaus took some cues from Bobby Jones and Alister MacKenzie’s handiwork at Augusta National. Is it too big a leap to suggest players with a good track record at Augusta should also thrive at Muirfield Village? 

Nicklaus: Muirfield Village is more of a second-shot golf course and a driver’s golf course, as is Augusta National. I tend to prefer those courses from a design standpoint and a playing perspective. I think driving the golf ball should be fun, and it should not be as restrictive off the tee as you might see with some golf courses. I tend to put a premium on the approach shot with many of my designs, and both Muirfield Village and Augusta require precision on the approach. So I guess the two courses probably do have a few similarities. I was told recently that six past winners of the Memorial have also won the Masters, and that those six players have a combined 12 Memorial wins and 16 Masters victories.

Excuse me, but I've been reliably informed that we should no longer use the term "second-shot course"... Seriously, though, have you seen the rough at Muirfield Village?  

Anybody but me find that data he cites kind of curious?  First, the Memorial began in 1976, so six Masters champions in 43 years seem kind of, well, underwhelming.....  And Tiger and Jack alone count for eleven of those Masters wins.  

Mike Bamberger had the perfect response I think:

Bamberger: Both courses favor golfers who are really good at golf. Other courses I would put on that list include Bethpage Black, Shinnecock Hills, Oakmont, Oak Hill, East Lake, Winged Foot, the Old Course, Royal Melbourne and the Yale course. It is a crime against golf that Muirfield Village has not had a U.S. Open.

Though we'll agree to disagree on that last point.... It's a fine golf course, it's just that we see it in early June every year as it now stands.  It would be the same place two weeks later, so what's the point?

You guys good?  I need to get on with my day.... Oh OK, one more fun one from those TC guys:

6. The R&A is still mulling John Daly’s cart request for the British Open. (The PGA of America’s decision to grant Daly a cart at the PGA Championship was met with mixed reviews.) Should the R&A follow the PGA of America’s lead and grant Daly cart usage at Portrush?

Gee, that's a tough one..... Not!.

Zak: They should follow their own protocols, not the PGA’s. If Daly is able to earn another disability claim to match whatever standards the R&A holds up, then definitely. I just get the sense that the backlash is so considerable that we won’t be asking this question a third time. And I definitely won’t block my colleagues on Twitter for anything they say in this space…

Wood: No. No. No. Phil Mickelson has arthritis (I’ve seen the commercials), so why couldn’t he get one as well? It’s a can of worms the PGA opened by granting Daly a cart. I mean, there’s no risk because he has no chance of being competitive at the PGA or British Open, but if this were to become a precedent, it would be a matter of time until someone who COULD win is granted a cart for a similar reason. 

Sens: No. For all the reasons John lists above. The buggy was bad enough at Bethpage, and that was in a championship in the United States, the country that gave birth to golf cart culture (in that context, you could almost argue that Daly buzzing around in a cart made sense). As a matter of principle (to say nothing of aesthetics), it would look and feel a zillion times worse against a backdrop where carts have no more place than a Formula One car in a foot race.

Though, to be fair, Bethpage Black has never embraced that golf cart culture....  

Dethier: Is there a way I can approve of Casey Martin’s exemption and not Daly’s? I know this is a world less fond of nuance than ever, but I support the idea of someone with a disability and long-standing condition being allowed to play — but not necessarily THIS exemption, the way it has all played out. As unhappy as Daly looked at Bethpage, I wonder if he’s not semi-hoping for a rejection, too.

Gee, Dylan, if you can't distinguish between a debilitating illness and a man that's simply a fat slob, perhaps another line of work would suit you better.  

I actually have a sort-of buggy story about Royal Portrush.  in 2012 we did our Fortnight in Ballyliffin thing, and it wa son that trip that I developed a severe case of shin splints form the rock-hard turf.  Portrush was our final round of the trip to be played with our friend Lowell, and he told me that we wouldn't be able to use a buggy on their hallowed links.  We got me a caddie and I gingerly made it through the day, but if I had to walk, so should Long John.  Or, hopefully, let him avoid the long trip just to mail it in....

See you tomorrow.