As I make my way to the keyboard, there's only the vaguest sense of that which I'll blog in the next couple of hours. However, from my brief circuit of the golfing press, it's not teeing up to be a good day for our major institutions.... Tough love will be dispenses.
The Kevin Na Show - There may not be a better show on Tour than Kevin Na, though this might be a new high-water mark for the lad:
Who won: Kevin Na (one-under 70, 23 under overall; Won with a par on the second playoff hole)
How it happened: Na played the front nine in two under on Sunday and stood on the 10th tee with a three-shot lead, but a disastrous triple bogey on the par-4 10th (seebelow) cut his lead to just one over Cantlay, and those two dueled it out in the final pairing the rest of the way.
They had identical scorecards the next five holes — par, birdie, birdie, par, birdie — and Na still led by one with three to play. But on the par-5 16th Na’s second shot hit off the front bank of the green and dropped backward into the water, leading to a bogey. Cantlay, meanwhile, found the middle of the green with his second shot and two-putted from 39 feet for birdie, making it a two-shot swing and giving him a one-stroke lead. More fireworks happened minutes later on the par-3 17th; Cantlay landed his 9-iron short and it spun back into the water and made bogey, and Na found the bunker right of the green, splashed out and drained a 23-footer to save par and tie Cantlay at 23 under.
OK, I'm curious about that triple on ten.... I was channel-flipping crazily yesterday, back and forth among the golf, Packers-Cowboys and the National League playoffs... I saw Na's tee shot on the tenth, a crazy Thurman Munson of the kind one rarely sees for this class of golfer, but missed what came nex:
When the tournament became a tournament: Na led by three with nine to play, but his chip on the par-4 10th rolled off the green and led to a triple-bogey 7. It dropped his lead to just one, and suddenly the chase was on.
There has to be more to it than that, no? Let's see if this guy can fill in the missing detail:
He stepped to the 10th tee 24 under overall and leading the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open by three and had just nine holes in front of him and his fourth career PGA Tour victory… but then he missed the fairway left on the par-4 10th hole and soon the entire tournament would be turned on its head.
He didn't just miss the fairway... He missed it badly with a hybrid.
Na’s approach landed short of the green, and his delicate pitch over the bunker rolled past the pin and slowed down as it reached the back of the green — but one too many rotations sent his ball plummeting down the slope and into the rough. Na’s next chip was even worse, and from 59 feet away he three-putted and made a triple-bogey 7.
OK, I'm getting a sense for it.... Somehow Na's head didn't explode, though we keep tuning in because we know one of these weeks it will.
As you might have heard, Mr. Na had a good week with the flat blade:
Na, who made 202 feet of putts in his second-round 62 and 117 feet of putts in his third-round 61, set the record for most feet of putts made in a 72-hole tournament since the PGA Tour started tracking statistics with ShotLink in 2003. He finished his 72nd hole with 558 feet, 11 inches of putts. That bested the record set by Ben Martin, who made 551 feet, 2 inches of putts in the 2015 Dean and DeLuca Invitational.
Yes, and his daughter Sophia is awfully cute....
So he made a million putts this week, but this one was my fave:
On the first playoff hole, the par-4 18th, both players hit there approaches close, and Cantlay got things started by rolling in his birdie putt. Na, from 9 feet, 5 inches, needed to make his to keep the tournament alive — and he answered. Check out the putt below, and take a moment to appreciate Na’s early (and confident) walk toward the hole. He took two full steps before the ball dropped!
We've seen Na do this before, most notably with Tiger, but this was a very cool moment given the stakes.
We all over-interpret week-to-week results, buts since someone just mentioned Na and Tiger, the weekly Tour Confidential panel couldn't help but wonder:
3. Kevin Na won the Shriners in a playoff on Sunday, and the 36-year-old has now racked up three victories in the last 16 months, making him an intriguing candidate for Tiger Woods when he makes his Presidents Cup captain’s picks. But with Rickie, Reed, Finau, Jordan, Phil and even Tiger himself among those vying for picks, is this too little too late for Na?
Zak: No! It’s not too late. You want players in good form. If at the time Tiger is ready to make his picks Na seems like he’s in better form to play in Australia than, say, Rickie Fowler, then Na should be picked. Tiger and Na get along well, too, which should be a little feather in his cap.
Kerr-Dineen: It shouldn’t be hard at all! The bottom of the order for the U.S. team is looking pretty sketchy, filled with Reeds and Spieths who have flattered to deceive for most of the last season. Kevin Na is one of the few players in that class that has actually stepped up. He putted out of his mind last week, and if a guy like that can’t get a serious look, what are we even doing here?
Bamberger: I fear that the Presidents Cup has elements of The Bachelor or something like it. In other words, popularity is a huge factor, consciously or not. Hard to imagine K. Na getting a nod.
Wall: I don’t think it’ll make a difference. My guess is Tiger already has a good idea of who he’s taking to Australia. Don’t believe Na is on the short list.
Mikey Bams nails it for sure... But taking the issue seriously, and why start now, the concept of form for an event two months out is laughable. It's teeing up as an interesting decision for Tiger, though not necessarily for the best of reasons. But if it is a popularity contest, at least Na is popular with the one guy that matters...
Did any of you stick around for Na's interview? It got really weird, and it's a higher bar for weird when Na is involved:
After answering questions about battling Cantlay down the stretch and overcoming a triple bogey on 10, Na told Golf Channel’s Chantel McCabe, “I want to say something in Korean, too.” Na was immediately overcome with emotion, and he took several secondsto collect his thoughts before he rattled off a thoughtful message that lasted 45 seconds.He was asked what he said in his winner’s press conference that evening.
“I just said it took a lot of hard work,” Na said. “I thanked the fans for believing in me, cheering for me. Just wanted to send a message back home.”
But according to Golf Channel’s Will Gray, Golf Channel translated the comments to say: “To my Korean fans, for always supporting and believing in me despite all these false rumors. I want to say thank you. No matter what anyone said about me, I have been very happy. So as I kept my mouth shut, I feel like I showed you my feelings with my clubs today. Even as I bit my tongue, I have gotten to this point. Thank you to my fans again, I will see you soon at the CJ Cup.”
Na later declined to add further context to Golf Channel.
Thoughtful? Maybe, but I'll have to take their word for the fact that it was only 45 seconds, because it felt like two hours....
So, have you noticed that your humble blogger is on a bit of a roll recently? Pay no attention to those seven Open Championships that I predicted for Sergio, you're looking at a man that nailed Tony Romo's regression to the mean. Hey, it's a gift....On Friday I called another regression correctly, though this guy actually stuck around for the weekend, resulting in yet another "Phil being Phil" moment:
How much Phil Mickelson has left in the tank as he approaches his 50th birthday in June remains to be seen, but we can be certain of one thing: This old dog continues to learn new tricks.
On Friday, we marveled at Mickelson's amazing recovery shot from a gravel lie while standing on a cart path. It was vintage Mickelson, a mix of showmanship and skill that golf fans have gotten used to during his nearly three decades on the PGA Tour. Even more amazing? Mickelson managed to top that effort less than 24 hours later.Although there is no official footage of the driver Phil hit out of a bush during Saturday's third round of the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, thankfully, a Las Vegas real estate appraiser named Vance Randall was at TPC Summerlin to document this absurd attempt. From his Instagram story you can see Phil thought about a more conservative play with a hybrid (LOL) before settling on the big stick, because, well, he's Phil Mickelson. Anyway, here is just the shot itself, because you need to see it to believe it.
Click through to watch Zapruder's Randall's video, but riddle me this, Batman. Isn't he, you know, standing on a cart path? I'm thinking there might have been some kind of relief available, but maybe he liked his lie.
He finished 61st, so how ca Tiger not take him to Australia? And, of course, play him in alternate shot....
Yeah, We Know - Eamon Lynch doesn't tell us anything we don't already know, though he does it in amusing fashion:
Most sports have entertaining sideshows that aren’t to be confused with the main event,no matter how much Barnum & Bailey-style bluster attends it. All-star games, home run derbies and the like are for histrionics, not history. The same goes for golf’s Skins games.
It’s been 36 years since the Skins Game was first played and about 30 years since it lost its novelty, though only a decade since it was finally mothballed. Money mattered back then, even to Jack Nicklaus, who was ecstatic once after making a putt worth $240,000 (almost $100,000 more than he got for winning the ’86 Masters). Given the sums now commonplace in golf — 112 players earned over $1 million before bonuses last season on the PGA Tour — Skins games need a raison d’etre beyond testing the old ‘putt for dough’ theory, especially if the cash at stake won’t even gas the competitors jets or make caddies sweat their percentage.
Really, the only fun that ever came out of the event was Tom Watson trashing Gary Player for his tenuous relationship with the rules in the original installment. But Shack's post on the subject has a curious header:
"Skins game reminds us that money can't buy meaningful rivalries on Tour"
What money?
So it is with “The Challenge: Japan Skins,” the Oct. 21 match featuring Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Hideki Matsuyama and Jason Day (the latter two invited to juice local interest and ensure the broadcast won’t be over too quickly). The purse of $350,000 is less than last place paid at the Tour Championship, but what does the purse really matter in a world of appearance fees and partner brand extensions?
Who among us can resist the siren song of partner brand extensions? But really, $350K split four ways isn't even cab fare for these guys...
Can you feel the excitement building:
The Challenge was touted in coordinated social media posts and press releases that exhibited all the spontaneity of a North Korean military parade. “There has always been some friendly banter between us, and that will continue until we get to the first tee,” Woods said with the kind of passion money can’t buy.
“There are so many fun elements to The Challenge that will have me wanting to take home that title,” McIlroy pitched in gamely.
In fairness, the bar is low for this year’s “The Challenge” to outperform last year’s “The Match,” when Woods and Phil Mickelson asked viewers to pay $20 for awkward trash talking that was less amusing than what you’d hear from a couple of over-served middle managers jostling on a crowded commuter train home. With enough wrinkles and curveballs thrown in, perhaps “The Challenge” will entertain those of us who will consume just about any golf programming.
But wait, Eamon's not done trashing folks:
If we’re fortunate, “The Challenge” will have enough quirks and twists to distract us from the state of the world. If nothing else, it will help us pass the time — slowly, given Day’s presence — while we wait for a couple of guys to regularly go head-to-head with something other than brand marketing at stake, in tournaments that matter more than money ever could.
Remind me never to piss off Eamon...
Houston, We Have A Problem - The Tour heads to Houston this week, and we can only ask ourselves why?
“I’ve been doing this for 13 months and I know I’ve looked a lot of players in the eye who said they were coming and they are not here,” tournament director Colby Callaway told GOLF.com. “So, I’m a little surprised, but it is what it is.”
With the depth of the modern-day Tour schedule, competition for stars has never been more intense, especially among second-tier events and most especially during this time of year.
“It’s a different time in the fall,” said Callaway, who has managed Champions Tour events for more than a decade. “I’m learning that in the fall, players are interested in chasing the big money internationally and playing overseas. That’s not up to me to figure that out, but up to the Tour to help out because there are tournaments here who are saying, ‘What about us?’
“Hopefully we can force the Tour’s hand to move us.”
Oh, you thought those guys in Ponte Vedra Beach are there to help you? That must come as quite the shock...
The TC panel actually led with a query on this subject:
1. The Houston Open used to be a popular stop for pros prepping for the following week’s Masters or for those still trying to qualify, but it was one of the handful of events shuffled this offseason. Instead of its normal spring date it will now be played this week at the Golf Club of Houston, but the schedule change hasn’t been kind to the field — not one player in the top 30 in the World Ranking is playing. Tournament director Colby Callaway told GOLF.com: “I’m learning that in the fall, players are interested in chasing the big money internationally and playing overseas. That’s not up to me to figure that out, but up to the Tour to help out because there are tournaments here who are saying, ‘What about us?'” The Tour requires players who make less than 25 starts/season to add a new event to their schedules they haven’t played in the past four seasons, but is that enough? If not, what else can the Tour do to bring star power to lesser events?
Sean Zak: The Tour can definitely sequence these events better. There’s a West Coast swing and a Florida swing for a reason. Now there’s a quasi-swing happening in the Midwest. Houston would be best off being slotted before or after any of the three Texas events. Or perhaps the Zurich Classic since NOLA isn’t far away. The biggest deterrent to top-notch pros showing up is being slated in the fall before the big money shows up. That’s the bottom line, and I think the event could have seen that coming.
Luke Kerr-Dineen: I wholly agree with Sean. I like when the PGA Tour clusters these events together. It helps players get into a rhythm they can plan for. Will that help bolster the fields of these events? It won’t hurt. But ultimately, unless these events start tossing around more money, players are going to continue overlooking them for the ones that do.
Michael Bamberger: I’m afraid this is all under the category of survival of the fittest, and the new, or current, world order. The traditional Tour as many of us grew up on is dead. That Tour was rooted in community. The current Tour is rooted in corporate profit and player payday. Those things kill tradition but it’s the way of the world.
Jonathan Wall,: I’m with Michael here. These guys are private contractors and follow the money. Unfortunately, the Houston Open fell on tough times and has suffered mightily with a brutal spot on the schedule. Credit to Astros owner Jim Crane for reviving the event, but there’s little to no chance marquee names are showing up the week prior to a stretch of events in Asia with massive purses. I’d still love to see Houston return to the main rotation at some point, but it won’t be the week prior to Augusta with Valero’s big-money sponsorship.
We've seen this movie on an endless loop, as once the sponsor's check clears the Tour moves on to the next shiny object. Jim Crane is a big boy who can answer for himself, but Mr, Callaway sounds hopelessly naive in thinking the Tour is there to help. I suspect he'll be in the market for a dog shortly....
But can anyone tell me what the purpose of this series of events is? It seems to me that they play because they can, not because anyone has thought through what this time on the calendar should look like. But once that sponsor check clears, it's all on the local organizers to sell players on showing up, making it awkward that the guy running this one doesn't think it's in his job description.
Fair, The New F-Word - Anytime a politician uses the F-word in a pice of legislation, hold onto your wallet. Have you followed the latest from those crazy Californians (But I repeat myself):
Here is what you won’t see in the wake of the new California law allowing collegeathletes who attend public and private schools in the state to profit from the use of their name, image and likeness: A parade of high school golfers being wooed to come to State U. by the potential to sign a five- or six-figure endorsement with a car dealership. In this instance, the laws of capitalism will have more sway than those of any state government.
What you will see, though, is unclear. The real-world implications of the Fair Pay to Play Act (SB-206), set to go into effect in 2023, have been a much-debated topic since the California legislature took up the bill earlier this year and approved it last month before Gov. Gavin Newsom signed it on Monday.
Obviously the institutional arrangements governing college sports are under strain, and need some significant updating. But these California legislators fall victim to their hubris yet again, attempting to legislate for the entire country.
Equally obviously, they also remain unburdened by any knowledge of economic reality. Out in the real world, two sports (both men's sports, damn the patriarchy), fund the entire gamut of intercollegiate athletics. That arrangement can certainly be criticized, but when you threaten the feed lot of those, you threaten all college athletics....
But the rot runs far deeper, as Dylan Dethier reminds us from personal experience. Dethier played his college golf at Division III Williams College, a bastion of greedy capitalists seeking to profit off their athletic fame. The full wrath of the NCAA's enforcement powers were brought to bear on this miscreant, for the crime of.... well, you won't believe it:
Bilas’ general stance on compensating college athletes is simple: Do it! In his remarks to the packed-house Bronfman Science Center auditorium, he pointed out the hypocrisy of the NCAA and the amount of money flowing through college athletics. He alsoexplained that non-athletes in college were free to make money in any number of different ways. If a student started a business, or drew a painting, or wrote a book, nothing would stop them from making money based on their skills. At that, I got a few glances from friends. I had written a book that was scheduled to come out in less than two weeks; I’d never considered it could affect my eligibility. Still, we forgot about it almost immediately. I’d done nothing wrong, and more to the point, I was a DIII golfer. There was no way anybody would care. Or so I thought.
Bilas had spoken to the ridiculousness of these rules. How they didn’t make sense. But one member of the audience (a point-misser, in my eyes) called our athletic department, mentioning they’d heard I was writing a book and thought it could be in violation. Our interim athletic director, who was trying to look out for my best interests, called the NCAA to ask if they had any advice for an author who was also a student-athlete. Instead, she got a strange call back, which she relayed to me secondhand a short time later: I had been kicked out of the NCAA.
The process behind this quick-trigger decision was never fully explained, but by my best understanding a straw poll had been taken around the NCAA’s compliance offices. Nobody had spoken to me (they never did) and had no real idea what they were suspending me for, but no matter. What I was doing sounded like it was probably in violation. That was enough.
Dylan, you wrote a book without their permission.... Who do you think you are?
Division III college golf generates economic benefits roughly commensurate with this blog, which we can estimate for our purposes here at zero. Yet the full brunt of the NCAA's Kafkaesque powers were brought to bear on him, without so much as anyone asking, you know, what the book is about.
Give it a read to understand what happens when an organization calcifies in place, but I'm thinking that Robert Conquest's third law goes easy on them. yes, the NCAA is corrupt to the core, and yet the California legislature's coup will inevitably just make matters worse. It is, after all, what they do.
In Good Form - This should have been included in the Prez Cup stuff above, but I'm too lazy to go back and add it there. The Professor had a good week in Vegas, finishing fourth in his title defense. His position on the Prez Cup team is secure, so he will spend the next few weeks working on his form in another meaning of that term:
While stopping short of saying he plans to go completely incredible bulk on us, DeChambeau has made a conscious effort to attack the gym over the remainder of thefall and may not play again until the Hero World Challenge before heading to the Presidents Cup in December.“I'm going to come back next year and look like a different person. You're going to see some pretty big changes in my body, which is going to be a good thing. Going to be hitting it a lot further,” DeChambeau said after finishing his title defense at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open with an 8-under 63.
“Bigger. Way stronger. Just stronger in general. I am going to look probably a lot bigger, but it's going to be a fun month and a half off. I have never been able to do this, and I'm going to go do things that are going to be a lot of fun.”
What could go wrong? But don't you dare call it lifting:
He will start his program on Monday and will include some intense stints in Denver with Roskoph as well.
“We make sure the neurological threshold is just as high as the mechanical threshold,” DeChambeau said.
“In layman's terms, pretty much whatever muscle potentially you have, how big and the muscle spindles you have, you can recruit every single one of them to their full potential throughout the whole range and training the whole range of motion.”
I don't think he actually knows what a layman is... But he's not done yet:
The workouts are done on specific machines and incorporate neurological fitness, making sure he is not hurting himself or damaging himself in the process but finding the tipping points and staying right near them.
“I can literally be in massive amount of pain and we can go do a treatment on one of the patterns directly affecting the neurological pain and not have any pain and get back up off the table,” DeChambeau explained of the physical therapy sessions he goes through.
“It's not your normal PT work. I've done it. I’ve broken ribs before. I got a rib out of place when I was 14 and went to physical therapy for the long time. It was great but didn't feel like it ever got better until I started increasing my tolerance levels with weight and strength,” he continued.
“Once I started doing that I felt like I could tolerate anything. You bring it on and I could tolerate it. So it's pretty cool what he does. It's revolutionary in the physical therapy world.”
I've been reliably informed that to make an omelette you need to break a few eggs, so what's a few ribs as well? But he doesn't seem concerned about being on form for the Prez Cup, does he?
I'll let you get on with your day, as I'm off to the gym to work on my muscle activation techniques. Don't worry about my ribs... If necessary, I'll blog hurt.
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