Late-Week Lethargy

Hard to summon much enthusiasm, though we'll do our best to stretch Mayfairgate to its limits....

El Tucan, The Resurrection - No Dude Wipes will be on display this week, though you might consider that an acceptable loss:

When Jason Dufner withdrew from this week’s Mayakoba Golf Classic to open the door for first alternate Rob Oppenheim to get into the field, Oppenheim hopped a last-minute

flight from his home in Orlando to Cancun, arriving on Wednesday night. 

The only snag? Getting his regular caddie, Dean Emerson, from his home in Boston to Mexico in time for Thursday’s opening round. 

So Oppenheim turned to a familiar name: David (El Tucan) Ortiz. 

“I needed a caddie,” Oppenheim told Golf Digest. “He lives here, was available and aside from everything that has gone on I was looking for the best opportunity to play well. He knows the course and has had success here.”

Fair enough...  Is there any way we could arrange for Oppenheim to be paired with Kooch?  In case you haven't noticed, we've got a really slow news week on our hands and they'd have much to talk about...

Of course, this only matters in the unlikely event that they're actually able to play golf:

Round 1 of Mayakoba Golf Classic postponed due to rain, and it's not looking much better for Friday

Lots of opportunity to sit around and talk about old times...

Eamon Lynch has carved out a niche as one of the more combative journalists in our little fishbowl, but I have no clue of what he speaks here:

Eamon's Corner: Let's not pretend Mayakoba caddie drama didn't happen

Given that Kooch himself addressed the issue, exactly who is being accused of sweeping this under the rug?  

Prez Cup Perspectives - Adam Schupak is convinced that Tiger picked the right guy, and this is basically his case:

If the U.S. is going to regain the Ryder Cup in 2020, it is going to need the fiery Reed,

who Tiger said “bleeds red, white and blue.” Where better for Reed to reestablish his aura as a big-game killer (see, Rory McIlroy, Hazeltine, 2016) than at the Ryder Cup Lite? While Sergio Garcia and Matt Kuchar go around kissing babies in Instagram posts and hosting junior clinics to restore their public image, Reed seems if not to revel in his bad-boy image to at least accept “it is what it is” and the 2019 Presidents Cup has a chance to be his personal Captain America redemption tour Down Under. 

“For some reason I love to go in and basically feel like my back is up against the wall and go out and try to prove something every week I play,” he said. “It’s just been something that’s always been a part of me.”

Really, Adam?  Reed is certainly a supportable pick, especially after his win in the FedEx Cup playoffs.  But do you really believe that the US can't win a Ryder Cup without Reed?  Because you've just insulted quite a few guys....

I'm not saying he's wrong, but this is one the worst appeals to authority we've seen in a bit:

Woods knows that Reed is going to be a fixture on the U.S. side for many years to come and he needs to be brought back into the inner circle, for better or worse. Reed is a match-play maven. He is the U.S. version of Ian Poulter. Or maybe an even better comparison is to say he is the U.S. team’s Colonel Nathan Jessup in “A Few Good Men:”

“My existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, wins matches. You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall.”

It is certainly true that Patrick's existence has seemed grotesque and incomprehensible at times....  Oh, who am I kidding, prertty much always.....

And this little factoid seems to get lost in the shuffle:

Captain America is out to remove the tarnish of going 1-3 in the last Ryder Cup (though he’s a little too quick to point out that he’s still undefeated in singles. Note to Patrick: the team lost; that’s all that matters.)

 He played very poorly, even in that Sunday singles match of which he's so proud.

Not to worry, Patrick says it's all good:

About a month later, Reed was asked if he still deserved the Captain America moniker despite his disappointing performance in Paris and his controversial comments. "Still 3-0 

in singles," he responded. According to Reed, though, the matter has been addressed and his presence on this year's team won't have a negative effect on the squad's chemistry. When asked on Tuesday if these issues had been brought up recently by Woods or would have any impact in Australia next month, here was Reed's response:

"Honestly, no. Tiger and I and all the guys talked after France way before," said the fiery player, seemingly shushing this notion. "That was all put to bed, and we all talked about it. We've all moved on, and we're all just really getting excited for this year and to focus on going out and doing what we're supposed to do, and that's to play the best golf we can, win points and have fun while doing it."

I do find it interesting, mostly because of Tiger's reaction.  Reed's Paris behavior was really noxious, repeatedly showing himself worthy of his "Table for One" nickname.  Yes, the team chemistry stuff is overplayed, but Patrick was all to willing to blame everyone else, whether it was Jordan, Tiger or Furyk....  And it's not like he played well enough to not take some of the blame.

Equally importantly, it's not like this is out of character for the man....  This has been his history his entire life, sowing discord and leaving a trail of teammates that hate him passionately.  That this is exactly what the U.S. Team needs is a curious theory....  Is Patrick aware of the effect of his behavior and committed to the modification thereof?  In these circumstances I always fall back on the old adage I first heard used in the context of law firm compensation.  To wit, that which gets rewarded gets repeated.  

As we all know, the team as it currently exists may not show up in Oz.  Gary Van Sickle may have eaten the wrong mushrooms with this suggestion should Brooksie not make the trip:

You can’t always get what you want. 

I forget which British prime minister said that line. Probably Churchill or Jagger. But let’s not dwell on esoteric trivia. Let’s dwell on what I want ... and can’t get. 

What I want is Phil-harmonic convergence. I want more Phil, as in Mickelson, and I want him at the Presidents Cup. I wanted U.S. captain Tiger Woods to show me something with his four wild-card picks. I wanted him to be less conservative, I wanted him to think outside the box, I wanted him to take a wild ride with a leprechaun on a unicorn. I wanted Captain Woods to pick Mickelson.

It's a cry for help, but I have to ask, why?

One, a golf tournament hasn’t been invented yet that isn’t better with Phil and Tiger in it, and the Presidents Cup is one notch above a made-for-TV event.

Gee, Gary, was the Ryder Cup better for the presence of those two?   But, as unlikely as this seems, that's far from the worst of Gary's reasoning:

Two, the real reason I wanted more Mickelson is that once he was on the Presidents Cup team, I wanted to see him tee it up in the opening session with his playing partner, Tiger Woods, playing-captain. 

It would have been a genius, compelling play.

Yeah, that's the ticket...  Somehow Gary advocates this because of, not despite, Phil's rather  Reedesque history:

Mickelson wanted to get the best of Woods in the worst way. He’d been the heir apparent to greatness on the PGA Tour until Woods arrived in 1996 and changed everything. From then on, Mickelson was second fiddle. In 2004, the Americans still hadn’t found the secret to team play or what makes good teammates. Mickelson didn’t help by switching equipment brands the week before the Ryder Cup – seriously, who pulls that stunt? – and then practicing by himself at a different course – seriously, who pulls that stunt? – during one of the Ryder Cup practice-round days.

This is more delusional than we see on a regular basis, though it triggers an amusing thought.  I'll agree to add Phil to the roster under the condition that we pair him with Patrick.  In foursomes....The over/under for fairways hit would be about two...not as bad as it seems since they'd only play eleven or twelve holes per match.

In fact, this is pretty embarrassing, ignoring as it does the more compelling issue, as per this from Alan Shipnuck's mailbag:

It seemed a lock that if Phil didn’t make the team, he would fill out that last spot for a Vice Captain. Now not so much. Whose choice was it? Will there be any lingering issues ? -@BrianSullyMD 

To paraphrase Stuart Appleby’s old line, Phil is like a bag of prawns on a hot day…he doesn’t travel well. I can totally imagine Mickelson telling Capt. Woods that he’s not keen on flying halfway around the world for a lopsided exhibition. On the other hand, this could be Tiger exerting his alpha status. Phil takes up a lot of the oxygen in any room, and he’s been more of a mentor to many of the young players on the team. Maybe Woods didn’t want his message muddled or his authority compromised. Mickelson’s absence is certainly noteworthy given that him and Tiger will be a huge part of the leadership of many future Cups. They’re off to an awkward start.

Has anyone considered the possibility that the bromance was just one of convenience?  But unlike Alan, it's hard for me to imagine that Phil didn't want the cart-driving gig....

Back to Gary for this challenge to Tiger's manhood:

The only reason to make the call to Mickelson is if Woods will man up and make Mickelson his wingman in best ball, alternate shot or both. History wants the encore, the world wants it and, oh yeah, it would make this the most memorable Presidents Cup since the year the Americans and Internationals fought to a draw in South Africa despite a rule that precluded such an ending.

Gary, the answer to your question above, that "Who pulls that stunt?" is blindingly obvious, a self-centered a*****e.    yet you think he's the perfect fit for a team event....  Curious that.

Alan had some other related questions with which to amuse ourselves.  First on Patrick:

Alan, if Reed has a poor showing at the President’s Cup, will this make leaving him off the 2020 Ryder Cup an easy decision? Also, will the “snub” of leaving Fowler, Na and Kisner off the roster spur one of them on to bear down and win a 2020 Major and if so, who? Thanks – @forearmshivers 

Reed is definitely on double secret probation, on and off the course. You gotta figure this is his last freebie so, for his sake, I hope he uses it wisely. Of the players you mentioned I think Na is a closest to a breakthrough, and now he does indeed have a little extra motivation. Na has gotten in the habit of winning and now married reliable ballstriking to one of the best short games on the planet. That works on any golf course.

I don't think anyone was "snubbed", though they're of course free to imitate Koepka and use it for motivation.  But, yeah, let's hope Patrick can control himself, because future captains won't likely have Tiger's blind spot for the guy.

 This is more of the same:

First question: why the hell did Kisner not make the squad? Second question same as first. -@Golf_anonymous 

Don’t ever underestimate how cliquey the PGA Tour is. A sportswriting legend once called it high school with private jets. (Okay, fine, I was the one who said that.) Kiz has never been part of the South Florida cool crowd. The reasons we all love him — he’s a spiky, loose-lipped son of a gun — might be what made Woods wary. After Tiger’s nude selfie leaked online, Kisner, in front of a handful of other players, joked to Woods that it had to have been photoshopped because, er, some of the proportions were off. Woods laughed, but maybe he decided he wants a little less of that jocularity in his team room? The other explanation is more prosaic: the two times Kisner has had a chance to win a major championship he crumbled on Sunday, shooting a 74 at the 2017 PGA Championship while holding the 54-hole lead and another 74 at the 2018 Open Championship when he again began the round with a share of the lead. For Tiger the majors are the ultimate measuring stick and Kiz has come up short.

Why would you be surprised that the guy in 15th place in qualification points was left off a 12-man roster?   I agree that Kiz might be a good fit for this event, but the case is highly arguable.

I do find this one amusing:

The International team of the Presidents Cup only gets together every two years. Differences in language, food, equipment, culture, and personality are all issues the USA doesn’t have as their core plays every year. Let’s say any U.S. Ryder Cupper can’t play #PrezCup the next year! #leveltheplayingfield -@mummumbles 

I sorta love this idea — that means this year’s Presidents Cup team would feature Wolff, Morikawa, K. Na, Kisner and sundry others. On the other hand, I think I’d rather have a Prez Cup with Tiger, Brooks, DJ, and JT in lead roles. Maybe there’s a happy medium: only six Ryder Cuppers can play in the ensuing Presidents Cup? That would definitely add some new blood to the proceedings.

OK, but you know who else gets together only every two years and has language and all those other issues?  Yup, the Europeans....  None of us understand why the International Teams have played so poorly, but I'm thinking we can exclude those.

One last note of possible linkage:

Jordan Spieth, Henrik Stenson round out Tiger Woods' Hero World Challenge field

Before we over-interpret, I should add that Rickie and Kiz were already in the field.  Among the obvious contenders for that last pick should Koepka not be able to go, only Kevin Na won't be with the cool kids at Albany.  

The Mayfair Compact -  Nothing dramatic to add to our understanding of the events, but our standards for content have been systematically lowered.  

First, from Alan's mailbag:

Billy Mayfair blamed the rules official in his group for not alerting him that he was bumping up against the three-minute threshold for searching for a lost ball. Isn’t it Mayfair’s responsibility to watch the clock, or, at the very least, his caddie’s? Are others at fault in this controversy? -@kevinp613 

It is ultimately the player’s duty to abide by the three-minute threshold but in these situations I put a lot of the onus on the caddie. The player has just hit a crappy shot and their head is full of noise. Why else is the caddie there if not to help navigate these tricky situations? Of course, there is a big difference between the allowed three minutes and the nearly five minutes that Mayfair took — both him and his caddie should have had alarm bells going off in their brains about a possible infraction. As for the other penalty Mayfair incurred, that is all on him, and his opaque statements about both infractions did not put Mayfair in a positive light. I think the rules officials did their job quite well, asking all the right questions after the fact and garnering all the evidence to render a just verdict.

Give Billy due credit, he blamed his caddie as well:

Mayfair said, “I had told Jeff to keep an eye on his watch. We knew it was getting close to the three minutes.”

Of course, given the extent to which Mayfair has proven an unreliable narrator, I'm not sure why we would think this happened as he indicates.  But the caddie is merely an extension of the player, so he's on the hook as well.  

And this was Billy's gripe:

“I wish this could have been handled more on an on-the-level basis,” Mayfair said. “It could have been handled better.” 

Handled better by whom, Mayfair was asked. 

“By the rules officials,” Mayfair said. “They see me searching for the ball. They know how long I’m looking for it. They have a stopwatch and I don’t.”

OK, Billy, then what watch was Jeff to keep an eye on?  But Billy, despite having played this game professionally fopr decades, gets that bit as wrong as everything else:

Again, rules authorities disagree. They say that a central element of golf is for each individual golfer to know the rules and follow them. The rulebook contains this sentence on its first page: “You are responsible for applying your own penalties if you breach a rule, so that you cannot gain any potential advantage over your opponent in match play or other players in stroke play.”

And there's one more really curious bit, one that I completely missed.  Golf writer Alan Bastable had this reaction:

Lawyering up?  Sure enough, it went right over my head:

Mayfair searched for his golf ball. So did his wife and Jeff Johnson, his caddie. Mayfair, in a phone interview monitored by his lawyer, said Jimenez “got on his hands and knees and searched as hard as I was.” Spectators came in, to help with the search. Two rules officials, first Tom Carpus, later Dean Ryan, arrived. Mayfair and Jimenez were out of position, though not on the clock, so the officials were close by. Everybody was looking for a Titleist ProV1X with two small red dots on either side of Titleist and a bigger black dot above the e.

We have an answer to the all important question, what's worse that a professional golfer cheating?  For those of you that guessed "A professional golfer lawyering up after being caught cheating", have you considered trying out for Jeopardy?

That Damn Patriarchy - I must have been away that weekend when the PGA of America solved all the problems in our game, because this one is pretty far down the list:

Have you ever considered the simple design of a scorecard? Take a closer look next time.

It is very likely your scorecard is laid out horizontally, with the first hole on the far left and the 18th on the far right. Very intuitive. But that classic orientation also includes an unwelcome element you may have never thought about. Up on the top, there are yardages from the back tees, then the men’s tees, then likely the senior tees, followed by a bunch of empty boxes to record scores. Then, down at the bottom, come the women’s yardages. 

“That small little token is the first thing women see when they see a scorecard,” PGA of America President Suzy Whaley said on the Drop Zone Podcast this week. “We’re on the bottom and you’re on the top, which is not great.”

Is it April Fool's Day already?  Shall we allow Suzy to dig further?

Whaley presented her point well. There is perhaps no stigma more inherent in the game than the one surrounding the tee boxes we play from, and that difference is reinforced by that massive gap on the scorecard. 

“What we have to accomplish in the game is kind of a new set of mores and norms,” Whaley said. “The scorecard typically has the four back tees at the top and the two forward tees at the bottom. Why is that? Why aren’t they all together? Who is going to go to the forward tees if it’s below on the card? Why don’t we just have every tee box at the top and choose the tee where you want to play? 

“Would there be a stigma about that then? Especially those generations learning the game now? There would be no differentiation. It’d be just ‘I’m going to play the golds today and I might play the greens and somebody else might play the reds.’”

Ummm, Suzy, are you even listening to yourself?  You're saying that women are so delicate that they're triggered by the position of their tees on the scorecard?  Silly me, I thought we could just, you know, treat them as golfers....  And actually, the reason that those tees are typically in a separate portion of the card is that they have different pars (sometimes) and handicap rankings of the holes.  

But wait, Suzy has more for us to rid our game of all vestigial racism, sexism and any other -ism known to man women:

There are a number of norms in golf that, according to Whaley, exist just because they always have, rather than enduring because they make inherent sense. As a leading executive and one of the most important people in the game, Whaley is focused on eliminating some of those aspects that might keep some people from diving head-first into the game she loves. Taking it another step further, Whaley would like to see double-par as an option on some scorecards as a secondary level of accomplishment for beginning players. 

“If you’re starting the game and you see 3-4-5-3-4-5 and you go 9-10-8-9-10-8, you pretty much think you stink,” Whaley said. “You just don’t have it yet. You’re learning how to get there. If you put ‘Your par on a par-3 is 6,’ and we can reach double par on any hole, we can really reach some progress.” 

Her point is as simple as it is sound. Why is there one obvious goal on our scorecards? Why, if we can’t make par, do we need to create our own separate goal in our heads? Another option printed on that same sheet of paper would, in Whaley’s eyes, make this game more approachable for everyone. She’s not wrong.

I think what Suzy is trying to say is that Par is triggering....  That low score wins will be her next jihad....  think about how triggering that is.  next up: your score is just a vestige of the patriarchy....

Have a great weekend.