Tuesday Tastings

Scanning my open browser tabs, it looks as though you're in for some deep dives today....  You'll be the judge as to whether that's actually a good thing....

The X-Files - It seems the the Schauffelle kerfuffle (I've been waiting a week to work that one in) has legs, as folks can't get enough of the physics of a golf club... or, as seems more likely, the whining of pampered professional set.  But the thing is, the deeper you dive the bigger the hot mess seems.

Callaway Prez Chip Brewer released a lengthy statement on driver testing, in which he sought to deflect blame from the X-Man:

While the industry continues to talk about this driver testing issue, I want to stand up for and defend Xander. He is one of the highest integrity, most talented and nicest young men in golf. And, he has a fair and reasonable point of view on this equipment testing issue. 

If anybody deserves blame or criticism for the driver test failure at the Open Championship, it’s us. We provide Xander his equipment. But in all fairness, I’m not sure we did anything wrong. We do everything in our power to design equipment that performs at the limit of USGA/R&A rules, but does not exceed it. As long as I am in charge, we will never knowingly produce non-conforming equipment or condone its use, especially in tournament play.

Amusing, in the sense that exactly no one thought that Xander was intentionally cheating....  at least not until we heard how defensive he is on the subject.  But do go on:

We test our drivers hundreds of times throughout the manufacturing process to make sure they are conforming. For Tour product, we have a Tour certification process that tests 100 percent of these products again at our facility prior to sending anything out to a player. We have also installed [CT characteristic time] testing equipment on our primary tour trailers so we are now able to test in the field on both new and “played in” parts, where high swing speed players could experience what we term CT “creep”, and a driver that originally conformed could become, through play, non-conforming or deemed damaged into a non-conforming state. We are also doing fundamental research on managing or preventing “creep” but more on that later. 

We know Xander’s driver was conforming when he received it. Probably in the range of 245 – 250 CT. At the Open we tested it at 255 CT, still conforming but close to the limit. The R&A tested it at 258, one over the limit. This sort of testing variation is going to happen. Because the R&A tested it over the limit, the driver was taken out of play and we replaced it with one that tested well within the limits. All before the event began and conforming with the rules of golf and intent of all the testing (both ours and the R&A’s).

CT Creep?  Yup, apparently it's now a thing.... 

Golf Channel's Rex Hoggard has much more:

Last year’s Open marked the first time individual player’s drivers had been selected for testing and even that effort is random with only 30 players chosen. For Schauffele and many others, it’s the first shortcoming in a process that’s riddled with problems. 

“It’s not fair just to test 30,” Schauffele said last week at TPC Southwind, a week after his Callaway driver failed the CT test in Northern Ireland. “Knowing how many people failed this time around there’s a certain percentage and if you run that percentage through the entire field there will be others. I’d put a large sum of money that other people would have failed that test as well. Them knowing that and leaving the chance there might be other players in the field with nonconforming drivers while I had to take mine out, which is fine because it failed, I just don’t think that’s right.” 

Mathematically, Schauffele’s point is valid. Although the R&A declined to comment on other test results at The Open, if two other players failed, as Schauffele contends, that would be roughly a 7 percent margin, which statistically would equate to 11 players in the 156-man Open Championship field.

OK, I know math remains hard...  But word on range is that three drivers failed (a Ping and TaylorMade, as well as Agent Scully's), which my Hewlett Packard 12C stubbornly insists is 10%, equating to 15.6 drivers in the entire field.  

This certainly won't make you feel any better about the testing regimen:

The Tour defers to the USGA for equipment testing after coming to the conclusion years ago that the circuit didn’t have the expertise or the equipment to accurately administer the test. The USGA, however, proved to be just as reluctant to lift the veil on testing, telling GolfChannel.com in a statement, “we have done testing only at [the Tour’s] request. It’s not something we would do at their events on our own or independent from them.” 

The USGA will arrive unannounced onsite to Tour events, “four to eight times” during the season, and based on the Darrell Survey, which tracks equipment usage on Tour, will select various driver heads from the manufacturers' vans based on the different models a particular company has in play. The European Tour has a similar arrangement with the R&A conducting periodic driving testing. 

Note, the testing is not done directly to the specific drivers players have in their bags, but rather on a similar model presented by manufactures from their onsite trailers.

That first excerpt above might have surprised folks, the bit about Cally's test differing from the R&A's.  Turns out that's a real thing as well:

“From what I’ve learned, every machine tests differently and depending on how you tighten [the clubhead into the CT testing device] it can give you a different reading depending on how tight or loose it is,” Billy Horschel said. “When you test something all the machines should be the same. They should all be calibrated and give the same reading within a minuscule number. 

“When different machines are off by a greater margin then it’s tough to say some equipment is illegal. The equipment the R&A and the USGA test with isn’t too a high enough standard to give an accurate reading on a regular basis.”

Let me try to summarize the current state of play....

1.  The testing of CT is a highly-variable process, with unpredictable results;
2. The CT of a driver in play can change over time;
3. There is no meaningful benefit from the incremental increases in CT; yet....
4. Manufactures push their products to the very limits of allowable CT.

What a mess...Persimmon, anyone?

Though I'll leave you with this bit, indicating that perhaps not everyone is intentionally pushing up against these limits:

To prove the point prior to last week’s Open Championship, Justin Thomas had his driver tested and his manufacturer, Titleist, confirmed it was close enough to the limit that he switched drivers before the year’s final major.

“It's something that over time when you use drivers for a while, they do get hot, they do get a little bit worn in,” Thomas said. “I think that's on the manufacturers to make sure that they are tested and that they are conforming, because it's not fair to the rest of the field if guys are using some and some aren’t.”

Good for you, JT....  Now, can we discuss your views on backstopping?

On Schedules and TV -  Things seem to be accelerating as relates to the Tour's long-term planning...  Now I'm old enough to remember those naive days back when the Tour's desire to wrap things up before Labor Day led us to dream of an actual off-season.  I know, we're all a bunch of rubes....

First up, the Tour has released its 2019-2020 schedule, which includes a grand total of forty-nine events.  Now I don't need no stinkin' HP 12C to remind me that a calendar year includes only fifty-two weeks, but that's more like an off-hour than an off-season (and yes, I do know that there are weeks with two events), but still...).

Dylan Dethier sums up the winners and losers in this slightly tweaked schedule:

WINNERS

Greenbrier. It’s back! After taking the 2018-19 season off, the Tour heads again to White Sulphur Springs, W.V. where it occupies a new spot in the schedule. Rather than buried as a mid-summer in-between event, there’s something to be said for kicking off the new wraparound season, I suppose. And I like the idea of West Virginia in early September, too, which makes this thing a winner. But going up against Week 2 of the NFL season? That’s a tougher ask.

Glad to have this wonderful golf course back in the rota, but those early tee times will be a bit chilly...

Sanderson Farms. It’s a real tournament now! Last year, the Sanderson was played opposite the WGC-HSBC Champions; now it lives all on its own. That means the man who lifts the Golden Rooster trophy (Cameron Champ, last year) will get a Masters invite. It means the purse will jump from $4.4 million to $6.6. It means a healthy $1.19 million to the winner. And it means a full allocation of those sweet, sweet FedEx Cup points. Party on, Sanderson Farms.

There's little Dylan could say that would interest me in this event, save the amusing thought of a Tour stud seeing his trophy for the first time....

ZOZO Championship. The CIMB Classic is out and the ZOZO is in. The Japan-based event will be a fantastic primer to the following summer’s Olympics, and it’s got the best headliner in golf history: Tiger Woods. Instant winner.

Somehow I'm thinking that Tiger is more interested in his revived Skins Game....

These two are the most significant of the tweaks:

Rocket Mortgage Classic. The schedule is identical from Jan. 1 through the Charles

Schwab Challenge in late May. But the first shift is a fortuitous one; the Tour heads to Detroit the week before the Memorial. That’s an easy combo to pull and adds major juice to the Midwest swing. It’s easy to imagine stars heading to Detroit and then Columbus, skipping the RBC Canadian Open and then swooping into Winged Foot for the U.S. Open. 

WGC-Fed Ex St. Jude Invitational. Somehow, this past week’s Rory vs. Brooks final-round showdown felt extremely flat yesterday. But there will be plenty more juice in its position on the schedule next summer: two weeks after the U.S. Open, three weeks before the Open Championship. That’s a theme of these winners; tournaments are best situated when they have room to breathe. WGC-Memphis may get its heat back. It also may very literally get its heat back, because despite some unseasonably cool weather this weekend, Memphis in early July sounds toasty.

I was shocked at the bad date FedEx accepted this year, so it's no surprise that they land in a better spot for the long-term.  

Of course, for every winner there's going to be someone less fortunate.  In this case, the move of the Detroit event led me to expect this one:

3M Open. The once-annual Tour pilgrimage to TPC Twin Cities may stall out at one. Its 2020 position, dumped directly after the Open and before the Olympics, means no stars are going to be trekking from St. George’s to Minneapolis to Japan.

I think Dylan forgets that there will be a max of four American golfers in the Olympics, so it's not quite as dire as he makes out.  But isn't the bigger story that the PGA Tour will not have an event competing with the Olympics?  Taking one for the team, but that was not the case in 2016, when they were at Quad Cities.

But what's good for Memphis and Ponte Vedra Beach, is bad for an event that's been a ton of fun in recent years:

Irish Open. No, the Irish Open isn’t on the PGA Tour schedule. Remember all the fun we had this year with the linksy lead-up to the Open Championship? Lahinch for the Irish Open, Renaissance Club for the Scottish Open, then Portrush? But next year, WGC-Memphis runs directly opposite the Irish Open’s slot. Bad sign for fans of Irish golf. 

This preview of the issues facing the Irish Open, written prior to Portrush, is an unintentional howler, most notably this bit:

"I know this date, this Irish Open is high on the agenda in the communication between Keith and Jay Monahan in Portrush in two weeks… they have scheduled meeting like they always do at all the majors.” 

Having a blue-chip winner in Rahm at the weekend in Lahinch, with the victorious Spaniard, also the champion in 2017, promising to defend his title and urging American stars to play in future Irish Opens, would seem to boost Pelley’s bargaining power with the Americans but McGinley added: 

“It’s not so much ammunition. As I say, we’re very harmonious. We are getting on really well with them, and we want to continue that, and we don’t want to go into a brinkmanship situation. We may have to go into two opposing tournaments, but what can we do?

 And how did that harmonious relationship work out for you?

As Shack noted recently, all of this is foreplay awaiting the expiration of the Tour's rights packages, which expire in two years.  Sports Business Daily's John Ourand indicates that AT&T might be the key player in the Tour's fantasy life:

WarnerMedia has told the PGA Tour that it would consider converting one of its existing TV channels into a golf-focused one, but only if it winds up with the PGA Tour rights that currently are being negotiated. WarnerMedia execs discussed the idea in preliminary talks with the Tour around its next round of rights, which are up in 2021.

During its initial conversations with media companies, the PGA Tour has made it clear

that it wants to control its own linear TV channel. NBC execs have discussed letting the Tour take an ownership stake in the NBC-owned Golf Channel, which has carried the Tour’s cable TV rights exclusively for the past 13 years. WarnerMedia owns channels like HLN (Headline News), which has distribution in 86.3 million U.S. homes, or truTV, which is in 84.1 million homes. Those two would be the most likely channels to be flipped if the company follows through on its initial plan. Other WarnerMedia channels like TBS, TNT, CNN or Cartoon Network almost certainly would not be part of any plan to create a golf-focused channel.

WarnerMedia has not finalized its negotiating strategy for Tour rights and still is weeks -- or months -- away from submitting a formal bid. It’s possible that the company’s ultimate submission does not include a plan to flip one of its channels, but the fact that it has even considered such a plan shows how serious it is about the PGA Tour rights, which currently reside with CBS, NBC and Golf Channel. WarnerMedia also is launching a direct-to-consumer streaming service called HBO Max next spring; its execs have said that they want live sports to be part of its programming mix. Rights to PGA Tour events could fit in with that strategy.

Even though two years remain on its current U.S. deals, the PGA Tour will invite media companies to deliver formal pitches in the coming weeks. The Tour already has held informal talks with the incumbent networks, as well as others like Amazon, ESPN, Fox and WarnerMedia. The Tour hopes to have a new media-rights deal in place by the end of the year.

What, I ask, is wrong with cashing large checks?   One thing I internalized long ago, is that every business looks better from the outside....  The obvious problem with the Tour starting their own channel is that they'll be competing for an audience with their existing rights holder, Golf Channel.  

My guess is that AT&T will be used as a negotiating lever, though Shack makes some points that cut both ways:

Given that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson is on the PGA Tour Policy Board with oversight of the next TV contract, common sense says his company would seem to have an inside track if it bids. Then again, his company has received one of the worst dates on the PGA Tour just weeks after the Masters and the week prior to the PGA Championship. Tony Romo was the major draw this year.

Yeah, that has to be the worst date on the calendar.... Other issues as well:

In recent months, AT&T has been dealing with debt-reduction as its primary focus though that appears to not be a major issue. 

It was WarnerMedia that most recently was responsible for 2018’s The Match as a test case for sports gambling, synergy and golf. Reviews were mixed, with a massive pay-per-view payment disaster, live drones that didn’t work and a sense that the intersection of golf gambling and television has a ways to go.

$180 billion in debt, to be specific, but who's counting?  On the flip side, they do have that inventory of unwatched channels.... 

Major Headaches - I didn't do justice yesterday to the epic fail that is the Evian Championship, so pull up a chair.  While generally supportive of the ladies, this event deserves to be shunned for the hubris of its elevation to "Major" status.  The fact that it's been plagued by bad weather and other ills is, for me, proof positive of a higher being....

I covered the rain yesterday, ironic given the move from September to July...  Apparently, the Golf gods have not been appeased.  Perhaps the weather wouldn't have been so annoying, if they hadn't been out in it for so long:

Slow play is a hot topic in the world of golf — especially at the professional level. Just

last week, J.B. Holmes was lambasted for his pace of play at the Open Championship at Royal Portrush. Now, complaints are emerging on the women’s tour at the Evian 

Championship in France, the fourth of five women’s major championships this year.

Stacy Lewis, a 12-time winner on the LPGA Tour, including two majors, tweeted on Friday that rounds took nearly six hours to complete.

Here's her tweet, which does get at the heart of the issue:

Good news, Stacey, no one was watching anyway....

And the hits keep on coming...  Lexi Thompson didn't so much as sniff the cut line, but left town with these charming sentiments:

“So Evian, where do I begin…I’d be the first to tell you that I hit it like 💩 the first day

and missed everything. Not one to make excuses, but to land 3-4 drives in the middle of fairway and end up in the rough like the one pic with a stance like that, or get a first cut lie like this one, what is this telling you? And to play well today hit one bad golf shot but hit 3 iron shots right at the pin 5 ft at one point then end up 40+ ft….umm really? I’m actually very thankful that I don’t have to put myself thru that for another two days. You’re a beautiful place Evian but that’s just too many bad breaks with good shots for me, so bye @evianchamp ! #justnotforme #allgood #onward”

We're thankful as well, Lexi.  Win-win, baby!

Of greater significance, she posted (then later deleted) this photo of course conditions:

But if only it ended here...  Because our hero is likely to be very popular in the Woburn locker room this week:

Thompson, who sounded off about course conditions following a missed cut in France, accidentally left her passport in her golf bag, according to a Golf Channel report. Thompson's clubs were with 40 other players' sticks in a rental car traveling from the Evian Resort Golf Club to Woburn Golf Club in England, site of this week's Open. 

Ian Wright, a former caddie for Seve Ballesteros, was in charge of hauling the clubs between major sites. About two hours following departure, he received a call that Thompson's passport was in the back of his van. Wright told the Golf Channel's Randall Mell that he pulled over and waited for Thompson's caddie to retrieve the documentation.

You put your passport in your golf bag?  Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, eh?

After the passport was handed off, Wright had to repack the van, and told the Golf

Channel the episode put him back an initial three hours. Unfortunately, his delays did not end there: Because of the stoppage, he missed a ferry to England, and ultimately found himself stuck in rush-hour traffic jams. 

As Wright didn't arrive to Woburn until 5:00 p.m. local time—almost 24 hours after his adventure began—players whose clubs were in his van missed a practice round, as the course closed for maintenance. The players were, however, allowed to hit on the range. 

Thompson's agent told the Golf Channel it was an honest mistake.

Let's see if I have this correct....  Missing the cut by five shots: Someone else's fault.  Screwing up the entire field's practice round: An honest mistake.

"She had no idea retrieving it would cause the delay it did, or that it would impact other players the way it did," said agent Bobby Kreusle. "She would never have wanted that.”

I find myself increasingly unconcerned with what Lexi wants....perhaps she might want to explain herself to this young lady:

O’Toole wasn’t happy that yet another day of preparation for a major has been lost to her. 

“I don’t know why the driver would agree to accommodate one person knowing it would punish about a third of the field,” O’Toole said. “The driver should have said, 'Hey, I’ve got to get these clubs to Woburn. If you want the passport, somebody’s going to have to fly there to get it and bring it back.’”

Please, Ryan, Lexi got a bad bounce at Evian... You know that trumps everything.

Sergio Being Sergio -  I'm still waiting for that kinder, gentler Sergio to emerge from his Masters triumph.  Maybe it's me, but he seems as childish and petulant as ever...  Shack has the latest viral video here.

That should keep you guys happy, at least until tomorrow.

Weekend Wrap

As of Friday, I suspected there'd be little to say about any of this weekend's action....  Beware the early call, as they, because now it seems they all demand attention.

The Artist Formerly Known as The Bridgestone - I threw some snark in its direction on Friday, but the dust cleared Saturday evening with Brooks and Rory set to fight it out mano-a-mano.  Did you, like your humble blogger, see this as not the fairest of fights?

Who won: Brooks Koepka (five-under 65, 16 under overall) 

How it happened: McIlroy held a one-shot lead after 54 holes, but the Koepka-McIlroy

shootout the fans were hoping for never came to be. McIlroy made all pars on the front nine as Koepka birdied 3, 5 and 6 to turn in three-under 32 and lead McIlroy by one. Koepka birdied the 10th to lead by three, and McIlroy dropped further down the leaderboard when he bogeyed the 12th. All of a sudden it looked like Koepka’s only challenger was Webb Simpson, who shot 64 to take the clubhouse lead at 13 under, two behind Koepka. But Koepka had little trouble closing. He added a birdie on 17 to win by three.

Rory pulling a no-show on Sunday?  Who coulda seen it coming?  

Our Tour Confidential panel had a few interesting takes on this:

1. Sunday’s star-studded final pairing at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational

didn’t live up to the hype, although half of it did. Brooks Koepka shot 65 and won his first WGC by three as Rory stumbled to a 71. McIlroy, who led by one after 54 holes, was coming off a major disappointment at the Open Championship while Koepka was trying to prove he can be a factor in non-majors too. Who was a win on Sunday more important for? 

Dylan Dethier: In some weird way, a lights-out performance from McIlroy on Sunday may have been a strike against him — people would use it as further proof that he can play everywhere except the majors. Instead, I think Sunday reiterated a basic truth about McIlroy: The guy doesn’t play well when he’s pressing. Koepka, on the other hand, cemented his status as Golf King and undisputed No. 1.

I put it slightly differently last week, but his worst play seems to come when he wants it most.

Josh Sens: That’s an interesting take, and it seems right: a bit of a lose-lose for Rory in that regard. But I’ll pile on anyway and say that it still felt like the bigger moment for McIlroy. It wasn’t a major, of course, but beating big bad Brooks in the final pairing would have registered as something more than just another ho-hum non-major win. 

Jonathan Wall: I’m with Dylan here. I think we would’ve been talking a lot about McIlroy’s ability to rise to the occasion in a non-major, which is insane considering the strong season he’s put together. In the end, we’re talking about something that was known all along: King Koepka is really good at golf.

Strangely, no one directly takes on Rory's shrinkage in these marquee match-ups... Most famously vs. Patrick Reed, but also vs. JT in Paris...  I'm probably over-interpreting, but I won't take Rory seriously again until he loses the childhood friend on the bag.  He desperately needs a caddie that whill kick ass and take names....  Hmmm, perhaps when Stevie wears out his welcome with Jason Day?

The Brooks circus took a strange turn yesterday, with the golf world obsessed with his arrival time at the golf course.  I know, the very definition of a slow news week...  The TC gang didn't have much to add:

3. One week after saying he doesn’t practice for non-majors, Koepka showed up less than an hour before his tee time with McIlory on Sunday in Memphis (but explained why afterwards). Is this Koepka being unprofessional, or simply doing what he thinks is best for him? And should the PGA Tour feel slighted by any of his actions? 

Dethier: There was nothing unprofessional about the flattening Koepka put on the rest of the field Sunday. Winning takes care of everything! If he’d been hitting range balls at a different course and walked straight out of the car, that’d be one thing. But in this case, no gripes whatsoever. 

Sens: No reason for anyone to feel slighted. Just intimidated. Talk about a cock-of-the-loft move by Koepka.

Everyone else seems to be missing the irony, because I'm so old that I remember when this guy almost missed a Sunday tee time... Come to think of it, was that the last time he played well on a Sunday?  Of course he was matched up against Keegan, so all he literally had to do was show up on time....

Schedule Fails - We'll take time out from our results-driven blogging to discuss the new and improved Tour schedule....  Did you happen to wonder about the logic of making the world's best players travel from Portrush to Memphis?  We all get that they're not flying commercial, but it's hardly designed to show them at their best, eh?

Justin Rose was caught whining at the Open, and our TC panelists take on his gripe:

2. Justin Rose recently said the new schedule is “too condensed,” and this past week Open champ Shane Lowry and Tiger Woods skipped the big-money grab WGC-FedEx St. Jude. Next week is also the finale of the inaugural Wyndham Rewards, where the top 10 in the season-long points race split a $10 million bonus (including $2 million to the leader, which Koepka already locked up). Yet Paul Casey was the only top-10 player in the FedEx Cup standings who committed to the Wyndham Championship as players gear up for the following week’s start of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. Is golf’s new schedule unintentionally leaving other tour stops in the dust? 

Dethier: Overall, I like the new schedule. Some events will always get left in the dust, and it’s clear the FedEx Cup isn’t going anywhere, so it makes lots of sense to get it in before football. But this WGC-Memphis felt squeezed in. I’d love to see it come halfway between the U.S. Open and the Open Championship. Then Wyndham could be a palate cleanser pre-playoffs and we’d avoid this Memphis post-major malaise. 

Sens: More than leaving tournaments in the dust, what the new schedule has done is leave a lot of fans with a sense of early summer doldrums. It’s a refrain I’ve been hearing from a lot of my most hardcore Tour-following friends. Wait, the biggies are over already? Nothing else to look forward to? What’s left of the season is a lot of fat purses, and fat purses alone don’t make for compelling sport. Shane Lowry could have been playing for no money at all and his win would still be a zillion times more thrilling than a zillion Wyndham Rewards. That the players themselves barely seem excited tells you everything you need to know.

Most of them can't bring themselves to skip a large purse, no-cut money grab, but there wasn't much buzz to be found.

Jonathan Wall is their gearhead, but I think he nails it quite well here:

Wall: I think the lack of interest in these money-grab events further confirms golf fans care more about the product than the figure these guys are playing for each week. As Justin Rose said recently, major titles are the only thing that matters — not WGCs with no cuts and FedEx Cup events. I’m a fan of spreading out the majors, but I still believe there are far too many events on the Tour schedule. You can literally find golf on television every week, which waters down the product. I realize these guys are playing golf for a living and sponsors are the lifeblood of the Tour, but would it kill Tour brass to throw a couple off weeks on the schedule? Clearly, the big names aren’t all that interested in chasing the cash. Heck, highlight the Korn Ferry Tour — Nike Tour, Web.com, whatever you want to call it — on weeks when the big Tour isn’t in session. It’s worth consideration to keep players fresh and fan interest up during the summer when the events all seem to run together.

I'd only add that the same can be said about the FedEx Cup playoffs....  

Eamon Lynch takes on our pain, though his header leaves me in the fetal position:

Lynch: With 256 days until next major, Tour needs to rethink cramped calendar

No shortage of irony, of course, but all of the Tour's actions are best understood as reactions to the injustice of not controlling any of those majors....

The PGA Tour schedule was rejiggered this year to ensure the FedEx Cup playoffs are over by September, though fans may need a few more weeks to grasp the ridiculous

numerology that will see the points leader begin the Tour Championship at 10-under par before a shot is hit. Thus the PGA Championship shifted from August to May, concluding the major season at Royal Portrush, about three weeks earlier than usual. 

That may not seem like much, but it means that golf’s four most important championships were decided in a span of just 101 days. (It would be 129 days if we include the Players Championship, but while I’ve argued that it should be considered a major I’m omitting it from my calculations purely out of pettiness.)

I've stockpiled a strategic snark reserve for that event, so we'll let it pass for now.

But wait, it'll get worse:

That’s why Justin Rose became the first player to give the new schedule a thumbs down. “It’s too condensed,” he said at Portrush.. “As a professional in terms of trying to peak for something, the process that’s involved in trying to do that can be detailed and it can be longer than a month.” 

The world No. 4 was not persuaded by the rationale for the changes. “A major championship should be the things that are protected the most. That’s how all of our careers ultimately are going to be measured,” he said. “Thirty, forty years ago there wasn’t a FedExCup so if you’re trying to compare one career to another career, Jack versus Tiger, it’s the majors that are the benchmarks.” 

Those comments will have been about as welcome as a Cantonese robocall at Tour headquarters. Rose traveled last week from Northern Ireland to Memphis for the World Golf Championship–FedEx St. Jude Invitational, a tournament that didn’t just lack economy of words in its title. It lacked the winners of the Masters (resting) and the Open (still celebrating). The WGC will precede the Open in 2020, but the cramped calendar means Rose will still face another dash: this one from Royal St. George’s to Tokyo, where he’ll defend his Olympic gold medal.

But will JR dash from Memphis to Sandwich the week before?   How crazy is that schedule?

Eamon's on a tear, so let's let him have his say:

The Fall schedule ought to be more than an opportunity for journeymen to get a head start on FedEx Cup points before the stars return from vacation at Kapalua in January, but it lacks an anchor event. The Tour created this barren expanse on the calendar to protect the FedEx Cup playoffs — which is fair enough, since that’s where the bankroll is — and could remedy it by moving the Players Championship to the Fall. It won’t happen, of course. Even being the biggest event of the early wraparound season would still be seen as diminishing the Players, and ratings might suffer against the pigskin. So the highlight of our Fall will be a broadcast from Royal Melbourne in the middle of the night after all, this one the Presidents Cup. 

Since the FedEx Cup began in 2007, the playoff format has undergone more tweaks than the Kardashians. We can only hope the schedule changes get the same kind of rolling reassessment. A good start would be if the Tour worried about what golf fans want to see, and not football fans.

I'm unclear as to how the Fall "protects" the FedEx Cup, but the Players is just fine in March....  I'm of the mind that the Fall is more about marking the Tour's turf, and not allowing voids that could be filled by others.

Shack shared his thoughts on the schedule:

A few have questioned this publicly and quite a few more privately for a variety of reasons. Players are not seeing the wisdom in the tighter major window and have played less around the majors. With some high profile defections at the WGC FedEx St. Jude and an even bigger no-show rate for the Wyndham Championship (you know, to help your playoff position), cracks have appeared in the new schedule concept. Namely: it’s weakening the very “product” it was meant to strengthen.

I think we need a little more time to mull the question as the only meaningful reversal will come after a new TV deal starts and the various majors have considered how the schedule plays out. The 2019-20 schedule is due out any day now and 20-21 won’t change much either.

But my initial take as a supporter of the new schedule’s tighter structure? The majors are stronger for it despite what players may legitimately think is too short of a window. The surrounding professional events on all tours have been weakened instead of strengthened as players conserve energy, and the PGA Tour Playoffs arrive too close on the heals of the majors. Given that the entire thing was built around avoiding football season and making the PGA Tour playoffs a bigger deal, the early reactions may force a re-thinking or even a scrapping of the wraparound schedule concept entirely.

If only.  Contra Eamon, I actually liked the old Fall Finish much better when it was designed for the second tier of players.  The energy derived from young players fighting for their professional status more than made up for absence of big names.  I get that it's a tough sell to sponsors, but no one will be paying attention anyway.

I had no problem with the concept of the Wyndham Awards, though this was inevitable:

He earned $1.745 million for his victory alone, but he also locked up the $2 million

bonus that comes with winning the inaugural Wyndham Rewards race, which was put in this year to pay out $10 million ($2 million to the winner) for the Tour’s season-long points race. Next week’s Wyndham Championship is the regular-season finale and will finalize the top 10 for the extra cash, but Koepka, who isn’t in the field, already has the top spot secured. 

And lastly, Koepka has all but secured the brand new Aon Risk-Reward Challenge, which offers a $1 million payout for a PGA Tour and LPGA player. The competition uses a scoring system to reward aggressive and well-executed play through the course of the year.

 But, via Shack, here's what they promised when it was announced:

The bonus program will provide additional drama to the Regular Season finale and also place a greater premium on full-season performance, thus elevating the significance of each tournament on the schedule. 

"The Wyndham Championship plays a pivotal role in the regular season as it's the last chance players have to secure a spot in the FedExCup Playoffs," said Eliot Hamlisch, vice president and leader of the Wyndham Rewards program. "In joining with the PGA TOUR to introduce the Wyndham Rewards Top 10, we're not only elevating the significance of our own tournament, but also placing a premium on great golf all season long. What's more, as the world's most generous rewards program, we couldn't think of a more fitting way to recognize the PGA TOUR's best of the best than by saying, 'You've earned this.' "

Yes, Brooks earned it, but perhaps a week early.

And here's what they're delivering:

Of the current top 10 players on the points list, No. 8 Paul Casey is the only one committed to playing next week’s Wyndham Championship, and he would likely need to win this week and next to have any chance of catching current points leader Brooks Koepka. Chez Reavie (12) and Charles Howell III (14) are the only other top-20 players in points in the field. Jon Rahm is currently 10th, 80 FedExCup points ahead of Reavie.

The field strength of a Fall Finish event.  All is proceeding as I have foreseen... 

A Collinoscopy - This might be the most significant event on a golf course last weekend:

Collin Morikawa earned his PGA Tour card in a hurry. 

Morikawa earned special temporary membership on the PGA Tour after his runner-up at

the 3M Open earlier this month, but on Sunday he did one better, winning the Barracuda Championship in Reno, Nev., to earn automatic Tour membership through 2021. 

The 22-year-old, who was in college just a few months ago, finished with three straight birdies and finished with 14 points in the final round of the modified Stableford scoring system (he shot 65). His 47 points topped Troy Merritt by three. 

“It was something really special to finally get the win,” Morikawa said.

That didn't take long.  In a matter of weeks, both he and Matthew Wolff broke through for their initial Tour wins....  Viktor Hovland, you are officially on the clock....

The Yin and The Yang -  People keep telling me that age is just a number, but of course they lie....

But news from the Lancashire Coast lends support to that premise:

Langer won a record fourth Senior British Open on Sunday at Royal Lytham and St Annes Golf Club in Lancashire, England, by finishing six under for the tournament, beating out Paul Broadhurst by two strokes. 

The 61-year-old Langer came out on fire, carding four birdies on the front nine to make the turn at four under for the day and six under for the tournament. Langer entered Sunday three shots back of Broadhurst, who went on to shoot one over on his round to drop to four under overall. 

The two-time Masters champion got as low as eight under after back-to-back birdies at the 13th and 14th holes, but a pair of bogeys at the 15th and 17th brought Langer back to even par on the back nine. 

But his 66 was enough for Langer to surpass Watson and Gary Player as the only one to have ever won four Senior British Open titles in their career. Langer’s most recent Senior British Open title and senior major victory came two years ago. He now has 11 senior major championships.

As the accompanying photo hints, he had to share the stage with that other guy whose fight to make the cut on Friday might well have been the most compelling golf of the week.  Mike Bamberger, a lover of links golf, has the must-read tribute:

This is all a round-about way of saying that this farewell from Watson is significant, because here you have a golfer who played a sort of primal golf in ways nobody else

ever did, including everybody. 

Watson did not issue a press release announcing his goodbye or anything like that. He just answered a question from Lewis with characteristic candor. 

In explaining his decision to call it a day on the two of the most prized senior events, Watson said, “The why is pretty simple, I can’t compete against these guys anymore. I don’t hit the ball far enough, and when you can’t compete, there’s no sense. I’m a realist. I understand how to play the game. And I just don’t have enough tools in the tool box to compete against these guys out here.”

Funny that, because your humble blogger is also prone to using the adjective "primal" to explain the joys of links golf.

A few thoughts on this....  First, the obvious math, as Watson no longer has the tools at 69, but Langer is still beating the guys at 61.  Funny that.....

Second, I am quite relieved that the 2014 Ryder Cup seems to have not permanently tarnished Watson's reputation.  I don't think that enough people revisited Watson v Phil in the aftermath of that disastrous performance in Paris, but at the very least the golf world seems to have moved on from it.

Before moving on from Tom Terrific, the TC gang take a crack at his legacy:

Dethier: For my generation, his legacy will be contending as a 59-year-old a decade ago at Turnberry. Consider that Bernhard Langer just became the oldest major winner ever at age 62 — and that’s on the CHAMPIONS TOUR! Watson’s ‘09 Open was quite literally an unforgettable showing. 

Sens: That was epic, no doubt. But for sepia-toned legacy, it will always be the Duel in the Sun, beating the greatest of his generation head to head. I think the average golf fan would be hard-pressed to tick off any of his other major wins. That’s the one that’s imprinted in our minds.

If only it were sepia-toned, then I'd be able to forget that ugly green shirt.  Of course, Tom's is hardly the only man with regrets about his 1970's fashion choices....

One last point before we move on....  In early round coverage, I caught Langer teeing off on a Par-5 with a hybrid.  Strangely, Langer played the shot standing outside the left tee marker, a large box of some sort (sorry, can't find an image) that made his stance look claustrophobic.  Lanny Wadkins called it silly, given the size of the target area using that hybrid.

I originally agreed with this assessment, but then had some second thoughts.  We all understand how difficult lay-ups can be, for instance, because of the absence of of a specific target.  Was this perhaps not stupid, but rather an example of the laser-like focus of an elite professional athlete?  Discuss among yourselves.....

Distaff Doings - Most of the pixels will be devoted to the Evian, an event originally held in September but moved to late July to avoid horrible weather.  Yeah, how'd that work out?  

Ron Sirak is a good guy and has always been a strong supporter of the ladies game, but this preview piece on the LPGA's homepage could have used a blue pencil:

The aura that embraces the Evian Championship is laced with the magic of a fairytale. From the two palatial hotels, the Royal and Ermitage, to the breathtaking views of Lake Geneva — Lac Léman to the locals — to the Evian Resort Golf Club, the experience is almost too good to be true. But for 25 years this special spot at Evian-les-Bains in the foothills of the French Alps has been a shining star in women’s golf.

It's a pretty spot, for sure, but a fairytale?  Maybe I'm wrong, as this is the enduring image from the week, a squire protecting his princess:

Ugly week, but luckily no one was watching....  Think the PGA Tour's schedule is crazy, the girls now head to Woburn to play back-to-back majors....  Of course as proven by The Players Championship, calling something a major doesn't necessarily make it a major.

This one could be filed under The Lonely Lives of Bloggers, as I needed something to amuse me for an hour or so before turning in.  Plan A was the Yankees-Red Sox game, but a quick perusal of the score rendered that a non-starter.  My DVR showed that it had recorded Women's Golf that day, so I gave it a look expecting it to the Evian.  Instead, it was the USGA's Girls Junior Amateur, and that was of far greater interest.

Ye Defeats Bourdage in Thrilling Final at SentryWorld

Sounds like a great final match, and of course these become young ladies to look for in the next few years.... 

I was more taken by the golf course, something called Sentryworld, and not in a good way.  Here's how the resort describes it's golf course:

An innovative course for innovative golfers

Throughout its 18 holes and 200 acres, SentryWorld offers rolling green fairways, pristine blue waters, impeccable white sands, and a one-of-a-kind course design by Robert Trent Jones, Jr., that encourages creativity and rewards resourcefulness for players of all ages and skill levels. The course incorporates these elements seamlessly, testing golfers while immersing them in striking scenery. Water comes into play on 12 of SentryWorld’s holes, while fairway and greenside bunkers nearly glow against their surroundings, and towering trees guide golfers onward while welcoming wayward shots with open arms.

Glowing bunkers?  They say that as if it's a good thing....But there's little doubt what they consider their signature hole:

My favorite part is the cart path through the flowers....

Get it?  I know, they got so caught in whether they could, they seem to have ignored whether they should:

Hole 16 | Par 3

176 Black / 168 Blue / 145 White / 120 Gold / 97 Green

The hole that made SentryWorld famous. Known throughout the golf world simply as “the Flower Hole,” this par three features more than 33,000 flowers surrounding its green. As beautiful as this hole is, however, it’s just as challenging. Three bunkers sit between your tee shot and the green, with a fourth directly to the left of the green. Play your shot well, however, and you’ll remember the 16th for more than its beautiful color.

The greens looked just as awful as this, with way too many tiers creating havoc....

It's my newest candidate for the worst golf course ever.... Admittedly, an extremely competitive category.

The Year That Was -  Last week we had that ranking of all forty majors from this decade, and the TC panelists affirmed those rankings:

Dethier: I feel for Jimmy Walker, but I can tell you essentially nothing about the 2016 PGA off the top of my head, so that feels like the correct choice. And as much as I loved me some 2015 Chambers Bay, Woods’ 2019 win may be the most incredible sports comeback ever. Kudos to GOLF.com for getting this one right! 

Sens: Unless I’m forgetting something even more forgettable, it seems exactly right. 

Wall: Tiger at the 2019 Masters is far and away the best of the last decade. No debate there. As for Walker at the 2016 PGA being the worst, I’d probably vote for Martin Kaymer at the 2014 U.S. Open. No one put up a fight and Kaymer ran away with the thing. He was six ahead after 36 holes! His 271 was the second-lowest total score in a U.S. Open, but I honestly can’t tell you anything about that week. Love Pinehurst, but that one was a complete snoozer. At least Walker had some pursuers on Sunday. 

Bamberger: I actually agree. Wall makes a good point about Kaymer, but that at least was mastery of a difficult course.

If you'll recall, I found the actual golf at this year's Masters a bit underwhelming, but it was a reasonably popular win.

Shane Ryan goes for the funny bone with his rankings, including this:

The Funniest Pairing of the Year: Koepka and J.B. Holmes, Open Championship

If there's one thing Koepka hates, it's slow play. We learned this year about his hilarious tactic of spending extra minutes in the port-a-johns to get his group put on the clock when he's paired with a slow player, but on Sunday at the Open, there was no escaping J.B. Holmes—a player so slow that when he won at Riviera earlier this year, most of the focus was about his pace of play. To make this unwanted partnership even more uproarious, Holmes went and shot 87. The whole thing was custom designed to infuriate Koepka, and it did—his post-round comments were a masterpiece of "I'm not mad, but actually, I'm furious." He even got annoyed that Holmes wouldn't put his glove on before his turn. These two should get a buddy sitcom.

Comedy gold, but JB's act is wearing really thin....

The Sneaky Four Made Cuts Man of the Year: Aaron Wise

This was almost Jim Furyk, but he missed it by one shot at the PGA Championship to go 3/4. Beyond Wise, the Four Made Cuts Club was small: Dustin Johnson, Matt Kuchar, Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay, Louis Oosthuizen, Webb Simpson, Jordan Spieth, Henrik Stenson, Cameron Smith, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Francesco Molinari, Rickie Fowler, Tyrrell Hatton, Brooks Koepka, and Tommy Fleetwood. 

The Four Missed Cuts Man of the Year: Shugo Imahira.  He was the only one!

I can't even conceive of how he was in the field at Augusta, but that's a hard cut to miss.

And this:

The Disappointing No-Major-Win of the Year: Tie, Rory and Rickie

Rickie would get it if we just considered his results—two top-10 finishes and four made cuts—and the larger career context of still looking for that first major. But when you consider that Rory had a chance to compete the career slam at Augusta and win a home Open in Northern Ireland, and further note how expectations were ratcheted up by his Players Championship win ... well, this is at least a tie.

Well, Rickie seems to be angling for the lifetime achievement award in this category.  Van Sickle seems to concur.

This Week in DQ's - Oy, how can things like this happen?

Mark Wilson took to Twitter to break the news: he was disqualifying himself. 

Wilson, a 44-year-old pro with five career PGA Tour wins, had to bow out of this week’s Barracuda Championship (opposite of the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational) when he realized his greens-reading book was non-conforming, a violation of Rule 4.3. 

Wilson said he grabbed his 2014 greens book and since it fit in his yardage book, he assumed the scaling limits would be fine. They weren’t. The revised Rules of Golf state greens books must scale three-eighths of an inch to 5 yards.

Props for honesty, not so much for brains.  But not as funny as the guy earlier in the year who did the same, not realizing that is was illegal, but also that the greens had been rebuilt...  Always better when cheating, to at least derive a benefit.

I'll see you nice folks tomorrow.

Your Friday Frisson

Thanks for understanding my day off yesterday....I'd like to tell you that I'm recharged, but 45 holes of golf in the span of about thirty hours has me knackered.... Let's see if you notice.

Portrush Leftovers - I've been reliably informed that the PGA Tour is in Memphis.  I'm unclear on how to avoid discussing it in Monday's post, but there's nothing you could do that would make me acknowledge it today....

The Golf.com gang offers some ruminations on their week on the Antrim coast, well worth your time.  It's a perfect storm for the traveling writers, golf in the morning followed by banging out your deadline article, followed by evening golf:

The very best version of the game

There’s one golf course that occupies the coastline between venerated Northern Irish clubs Portstewart and Royal Portrush: Ballyreagh Golf Course. That’s where colleagues Bamberger, Shipnuck, Kerr-Dineen (Marksbury didn’t bring her clubs!) and I found

ourselves late Thursday night, scrambling for a dusky few holes. But as we pulled into the near-empty parking lot at 9:20 p.m. we realized we were in for a real treat. 

There are two keys to Ballyreagh: property and ethos. The first comes out of sheer luck, I guess. Craggy coastline is rather more abundant in the north of Ireland than where I’m from, but this is still a prize piece. But the ethos of Ballyreagh is what makes the place. There are two sides to the property, a pitch-and-putt and the “big course,” the latter a nine-hole par-3. Greens fees never run more then eight pounds (10 bucks), and less for juniors. There’s a practice putting green and a chipping green, there are *actual* cheap deals on used equipment and clothing in the pro shop, and there’s nary a mention of dress code on the entire property. The greens roll a strong 6 and the views are a strong 10. 

The night we escaped out there, we were hardly alone. Three other groups played on in front of us, and another behind us. Three kids wheeled their pull-carts down the road on the way home. Two dog-walkers made their own fair use of the grounds. Sunset-walkers strolled the cliffside trail just below us. We set out with the goal of playing two or three holes; we ended up playing all nine, unable to resist the charm of No. 6, which played directly down at the water, or No. 7, which played directly alongside it, or No. 9, which carried a ravine, a dramatic conclusion for any golfer.

File under, "When in Rome."

I don't know if Brian Wacker writes his own headers, but this is absolutely a classic of the genre:

Rory McIlroy says he has to reassess the way he reassessed his approach to majors in 2019

Maybe, at this point, a kickaround?

 Though I think you'll agree this is needlessly hurtful:

McIlroy ranked 20th in World Ranking points earned in the majors in 2019, behind, among others, Chez Reavie, Matt Wallace and Patrick Cantlay, all of whom have a combined zero major wins between them.

 Cantlay is a stud waiting to break out, but when you can't keep up with Chez Reavie....

Alan Shipnuck fielded some Open-themed questions in his weekly mailbag feature:

Why do you hate David Duval??? -Daniel (@68shooter) 

I don’t! I’ve argued in print he should be in the Hall of Fame, because his dominant five-year run was far more impressive than anything many inductees ever did. I think he’s excellent on the Golf Channel. By all accounts Duval is a dedicated family man. None of this is personal…but someone had to say it. (And after I did I had numerous reporters, three caddies, one American Ryder Cupper and another player in the top 50 of the World Ranking tell me they agree but wouldn’t say so publicly.) 

The fact is, Duval plays only a few tournaments a year – his game, mind and body simply aren’t ready for the rigors of the Open. In 2016 he went 82-WD. In 2018 he opened with an 80 and withdrew again. We know what happened this year. This can’t be fun for Duval. It’s not fun for the fans. Wouldn’t the tournament be better served opening up that spot to a full-time touring pro who could potentially make a run at the Claret Jug, like this year’s first alternate, Martin Kaymer?

Ya think?  For the life of me, I don't know why guys like Duval do this to themselves...  Just because you can play, doesn't mean you should.  But the WD's are all on Duval, as he's showing no respect for his playing partners.

But the far greater scorn is due the R&A.  It seems to me that they and the PGA of America try to copy the traditions of The Masters (the PGA even has a Champions Dinner), as if that will garner them the same TV ratings.  But, as Alan nails, it wastes precious spots in the field...  Luckily, we were spared the sight of John Daly, who threw his hissy fit before arrival.

Does Portrush get another Open? -@SteveThomsonMN 

Oh, hell yes, and soon. It is destined to be a regular part of the rota. No one really loves Royal St. Georges or Royal Lytham, so we can phase out one or both to make room. In fact, my dream rota would be Old Course, Portrush, Turnberry, Muirfield, and Birkdale. Every 10 years we can mix in Carnoustie and Portmarnock for variety.

Can they go to the RoI?   They're quite obviously not going back to Turnberry anytime soon...  I would think Lytham and Hoylake to be the most vulnerable, but since Carnoustie is the toughest test (though Portrush is in that discussion), I'd think it's spot is secure.

Did Brooks’s pace of play put J.B. off his game? -@mocycling 

Well, Holmes had hardly missed a fairway over the first three rounds and, statistically, that couldn’t last. And he’s shown before he’s capable of a spectacular crack-up under pressure: at the 2017 Players he started Sunday tied for first and shot a ghastly 84. But no doubt Koepka’s very public posturing had an effect on Holmes, and I’m totally okay with that. It’s increasingly clear that the only way things are going to change is by the players policing each other. And there is zero doubt who is now the new sheriff on Tour.

Yanno, this is a great Q&A.  First time through, I thought it an amusing trifle....  But then as I thought more about it, it's got the ring of truth to it.  JB notoriously wilts under pressure, so why shouldn't he do so under this pressure of a different kind.   So Brooksie, you have my thanks for taking one for the team.

Why why why didn’t the R&A hand out a bad time penalty for J.B. Slow? -

@Babs2121 

In this scenario I’m actually a little sympathetic to the tweedy blokes at the R&A. They only run one tournament a year – why do they have to create a huge controversy by being the only organization to hand out slow play penalties? This problem belongs to the PGA Tour and European Tour – they run professional golf week-in-and-week-out and control the livelihoods of the players. The stewards of the tours could change the way the game is played if only they had the balls to do it. It’s not fair to lay the responsibility on the governing bodies who only have one flagship tournament each year.

I think Alan fanned on this one, which can be proven with a two-word rebuttal: Tianlang Guan. he was the 14-year old amateur slapped with a slow-play penalty at The Masters a few years ago.  The other point that should be made, is who do you think are the rules officials?  

As we've discussed many times, we simply do not have a regimen to monitor and penalize slow play.  Given that we capture so many innocents in our attempts to enforce the regimen, better to just Name and Shame.

Bubble Boys - The Golf Digest gearheads do a useful deep dive on equipment testing, it's just really unfortunate that they include this howler in their lede:

What a mess. 

After connecting with numerous individuals with knowledge of the matter—all speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the issue—it is clear that multiple drivers failed a pre-tournament test for springlike effect at last week’s Open

Championship. It’s been confirmed that at least three major manufacturers—Callaway, Ping and TaylorMade—had at least one driver fail the test. Golf Digest also has learned that some 15 drivers failed a similar pre-tournament test at the Diamond Cup event on the Japan Golf Tour in May. All of this surfaces two simultaneously simple yet complex questions: How big of a problem is this, and what to do about it? 

The scope of the issue regarding conforming/nonconforming drivers is debatable, but it is not a reach to suggest that it is enough to warrant concern. Fifteen drivers at a Japan Golf Tour event is a lot. Three or more drivers out of 30 tested at Royal Portrush is a lot, too. But before we go further, it’s important to point out that none of these drivers were used in the tournaments where they were found to be over the allowable limit for springlike effect. No one has knowingly, or willingly, used non-conforming equipment.

Alas, the bigger mess might be your tenuous relationship with logic....  Here's Shack on the subject:

As I noted for Golfweek, Xander Schauffele going public with his failed driver test at The Open, and then stirring up a debate about hot drivers, has kept the incident in the news and led to some interesting comments from top players.

Jason Munz reports on player thoughts as they tee it up in Memphis this week, and while some inexplicably display life in the bubble by praising Schauffele for taking on the R&A—even after being caught playing an illegal club that was used in competition since January—there are some who don’t take this quite so lightly.

We have no shortage of examples of said bubble, but do you the import.  We don't know when Xander's driver was last tested (if, at all), but doesn't it seem quite obvious that the man played professional events with a non-conforming driver?  You'd think he'd feel a little sheepish, no?

They make two important points, the first being that no is intentionally cheating...  The second is perhaps the more important, which would likely account for the lack of cheating:

The benefit of a driver slightly over the limits of conformance, most experts we spoke to for this story agree, is minimal at best. A good rule of thumb is 10 microseconds (which would be highly unlikely any driver would be over the limit by) might equal one yard. That would mean one microsecond (the absolute difference between passing and failing the CT test) might equal the diameter of two golf balls.

I figured as much, yet it'll leave you puzzled for sure:

A little background is needed. First, the test in question is one the USGA developed to measure for springlike effect by using a measurement of characteristic time (CT). The allowable limit is 239 microseconds—this is the amount of time the clubface remains in contact with a small steel ball swung from a pendulum apparatus at the moment of impact. A tolerance of 18 microseconds is also added, so although the limit is 239, any driver measuring 257 microseconds or less passes the test. Think of a 65 mile-per-hour speed limit, but you know you won’t get pulled over unless you’re doing more than 75, and you get the idea. The test is not limited to the center of the face, but several points on the face where impact might occur. 

So why a tolerance zone at all? There is inherent variability in the machines equipment manufacturers use to check their players' drivers and the machine the USGA and R&A uses to test drivers at tour events. When the USGA established the CT test, the tolerance zone was set to accommodate differences in machines, drivers and even testers' inconsistencies—with the belief the tolerance zone was well above what the actual variability was. 

As manufacturing has gotten better and manufacturing tolerances tighter, clubs are being designed to go deeper into the tolerance zone—raising the possibility of a club (or clubs) potentially going over the limit. To be fair, manufacturers persistently test all their drivers they send to tour pros, including “tour spicy” drivers that are under the limit, but perhaps only by a few microseconds. Perfectly legal, but perhaps a recipe for danger.

So, there's no measurable benefit to pushing the limits, yet push they do right up to the edge of the tolerance....  What could go wrong?

Nothing in this article will make you feel any better about the process, including the fact that they can't be bothered tracking the serial numbers of drivers that have failed their testing...  It's a mess of their own creation, for sure, but our governing bodies continue to inspire a profound lack of confidence.

Justin Thomas wants to know why you're looking at him:

“I think that’s on the manufacturers to make sure that (the clubs) are tested and that they are conforming,” he said. “Because that’s not fair to the rest of the field if guys are using some and some aren’t. We don’t have those tests just sitting in our living room (where) we can do them when we get home.”

Of course, Justin has a unique take on his rights and responsibilities.   For instance, he thinks he has a right to play quickly, before his playing partner can mark his ball, if such a backstop gives him an advantage.  Where do the rest of us go to find that world that's all rights, no responsibilities?

But it's deep thinker Bryson DeChambeau who's the poster child for a world without rules...  he wants the drivers of the top five in every tournament tested after the fact but, wait for it, none of those pesky ramifications:

“If you did play a driver that was illegal, you take some FedEx Cup points away,” said DeChambeau, who has five Tour wins. “So you make your money and win, that’s great, but you lose half the points you made. It’s not like you should have the trophy taken away. That’s one way to deal with it. You putted well, you chipped well. But I think there needs to be some repercussions from using something that’s not under the conformance rules. If they want to challenge the ruling, they can go do some tests to see if it was truly over.”

You mean those FedEx Cup points that you'd lose in the reset anyway?   Yanno, you really can't make this stuff up....

I will note that at Fairview we've had a run of players switching to the very same Epic Flash driver used by the X-man....  Players, invariably of the... well, how shall we put it, highly experienced nature.  Notwithstanding this concerning trend, our head professional strangely declined my suggestion of mandatory testing before Thursday Night League.  Go figure.

Ugh! - This is thoroughly dog-bites-man, but the shear repetition of selling Ryder Cups to the highest bidder is getting so very tedious....  Here's the latest:

Adare Manor in Limerick will be officially confirmed as the venue for the Ryder Cup in

2026 on Thursday morning. 

The PGA European Tour has decided that the golf resort owned by financier JP McManus will host the blue riband event, some 20 years after the event was held for the first time in Ireland, at the K Club in 2006. 

The decision is contingent on the Government signing a memorandum with the PGA European Tour as well as a licensing and marketing agreement. It has also agreed to make funding available to support the biennial event, which involves matchplay between the top golfers from Europe and the United States.

This news breaks just as we've seen the best that Irish golf has to offer....  I guess the K Club wasn't dreary enough for these folks.

More Alan? -  Why not, especially as he's naming names:

Rory McIlroy, a tragic hero? There seems no progress in his performances when it matters the most. -@Dominique_Franz 

The 79-65 was the perfect summation of McIlroy’s last five years: maddening and thrilling in equal measure. We know his wedge game can be sloppy and his putting inconsistent, but what happened on Thursday at Portrush was metaphysical. It helps explain why Rory often seems overwhelmed at the Masters, the tournament he wants the most. We all love Rory because he’s real and honest. We’re dazzled by his physical gifts. But what happened at Portrush was a window into his soul. Tragic hero is a very good way to think about Rory.

Hero?  I try to stay away from words like that as relates to our little game, but those two days in Portrush were the perfect synechdoche of Rory's years in the wilderness.

Rickie has been labeled the best player to not have a major. Is Tommy Fleetwood moving into that category? -@DJ_Lightz 

I could watch Tommy Lad hit the ball all day long. Some of the shots he played through the wind on Sunday were awe-inspiring. But his putting let him down. Again. As good as Fleetwood is it’s criminal that a year and a half has gone by since his last win. He’s such a kind, gentle soul – can he access the hardass flintiness that most of the game’s greats possess? Or maybe all he has to do is free up his putter on Sundays and he can remain a sweetheart with a bunch of big, shiny trophies on his mantle. (I think we’d all prefer the latter.) To your question, Fleetwood has certainly had the requisite near-misses in the major championships required to be the BPNTHWAM. But I think he needs to prove he can win more consistently before we worry about his major haul. Right now, I think Kuchar carries the dreaded title of BPNTHWAM.

No way, Jose!  Tommy Lad is a nice little player, but what has the man ever won?  Even Kooch is more of a Top-ten machine than a consistent winner, but Rickie is Da' Man in this ignominious category, if only because of the hype.

Tiger looked dejected, very slow through the ball and creaky old. Enough with the Masters hangover talk, there must be more going on here. -@LabLoverDE 

I think there was a legit emotional hangover after the Masters, and it clearly spilled into the PGA Championship. At the two Opens it was more about Tiger’s physical limitations. He pushed really, really hard last year, trying to build a new swing and reinvent himself as a golfer. Then he maxed out again leading to the Masters and throughout that week, when he climbed the tallest mountain imaginable. It’s pretty clear now that Tiger pushed himself to the breaking point. I’d love to see him just shut it down for six months and then show up at Torrey next year and build toward the Masters again. He only has a finite number of swings left – I hope he uses them wisely.

The breaking point?  By my count, he's played twelve rounds of golf since April.... My sense is that he doesn't seem to care all that much after his crowning achievement at Augusta.  That doesn't make him a bad person, but it leaves his fans confused.

Has J.B. taken over the top spot of golf twitter’s favorite villain? (Or at least until the next Jason Day WD…) -@WallDwarf 

It think Holmes solidified that honorific with his tedious layup at Torrey. It’s really a shame because J.B. has a moving personal story and should be easy to root for, but the incredibly selfish way he plays the game has destroyed any and all goodwill. Hopefully he takes to heart Brooks’, uh, encouragement. Kevin Na has learned to play faster and it’s no coincidence he’s won twice since. So maybe there’s hope for us all.

Kevin Na is the perfect comparison... he had his well-documented issues, more than just at that famous Players, but he always conveyed the sense that he was aware of and cared about the effect on other players.  J.B.'s attitude is very much of the "You can't make me" variety, and I can only hope he's hearing it from the other players.

Regarding Koepka’s comment that he doesn’t practice before regular Tour events…Isn’t it a bit insulting to fellow pros and the Tour brass that are trying to promote every event? What does it say about those events? Or him? -Vaidya (@vs2k2) 

There is a certain lack of professionalism there. I think about Joe DiMaggio being asked once why he played his heart out in every game and he said, to paraphrase, because there might be a boy in the stands watching me for the first time. If Brooks is going to turn up at a Tour event you’d like him to put in a little effort to play well, since fans have paid good money to be there, thousands of volunteers have given their time and various corporations have invested a lot to put on the event. But Koepka has made the correct calculation that majors will define his legacy and that’s where he can scoop up the long money and World Ranking points. So, why sweat the small stuff? He’s certainly a lot fresher physically and mentally this way. But his milquetoast performances in everyday events just throws into sharp relief Tiger Woods’ grind and pride as he fought so hard to win every single time he teed it up.

Yeah, it's a gaffe in the Kinseyesque ilk, accidentally speaking the truth.  But why should Brooks treat sponsor with any more respect than they get from the suits in Ponte Vedra Beach?  Once the ink is dry on the contract, you're on your own...

Looks like internal O.B. > rough to control the bombers. -@nolandad 

Yeah, sure, if you line any hole with O.B. stakes it becomes a lot tougher and forces players to be more defensive. That doesn’t make it right, or pleasing. My only critique of Portrush is that it needs to lose the O.B. down the left side of No. 1and 18. Neither is necessary on this great links. (The out-of-bounds behind 5 green makes a little sense since there’s no way play a ball from the steep cliffs beyond the white line.)

I agree, although this seems more a one-off....  But stay tuned, because the set-up issues aren't getting any easier.

I saw Jaime Diaz say this was one of the great major seasons of all time. I don’t get that. Yes people liked Tiger winning, but Brooks made the PGA boring for 65 holes, and Woodland and Lowry are pretty underwhelming winners. How would you rank this year? -Jeff (@War_Eagle1988) 

Coming up with an actual ranking would require more thinking than I’m prepared in this jet-lagged state but my feelings are much closer to Jaime’s than yours. This year’s Masters was utterly epic and will be talked about as long as golf is played. The PGA Championship featured the number 1 and 2 players in the World Ranking slugging it out on a big, brawny golf course…what more could you want? The U.S. Open had a lot of glittery names on the leaderboard, Koepka made a stirring run at another historic win and Woodland hit maybe the two most memorable shots of the year to pull out the win on an iconic course. The Open Championship was imbued by so much emotion. If Sunday lacked a certain dramatic tension that’s only because the day before Lowry produced the round of the year. He was the right champion at the right time. All in all, I think it was a helluva year.

I find myself closer to War_Eagle on this one...  It's a tough one, because the pleasures this year were more of the emotional variety ( see, Woods, Tiger and Lowry, Shane) than the golf variety.

I wasn't going to blog this item, but this guy ranked all forty majors from the last decade, citing this as the best:

AND THE MAJOR OF THE DECADE IS… 

1 — 2019 Masters: To quote Dan Hicks, and his memorable call from Torrey Pines in 2008, expect anything different? You have the greatest (or second-greatest) player ever capping off his unfathomable comeback by winning his fifth green jacket at the age of 43. You have roars, tears, awe. You have hugs with his kids. Case closed.

The minor issue I have is that the quality of play was pretty dreadful down the stretch...  I get the historical significance, for sure, it wasn't aesthetically pleasing.

How about a topical question on which to exit?

Given the recent Apollo 11 hoopla, who is golf’s Michael Collins? – Brian (@HailFlutie) 

It’s gotta be Gary Player. He was in the orbit of the stars but so often overlooked.

Cute, though Player really wasn't underappreciated.  I mean, the Big Three and all....

Have a great weekend.