Tuesday Trifles

Welcome to the dog days of November...A few things to chew over, get it?, then I'll release you to go save the world....

Mayakoba Madness - A new alpha dog on Tour:

It took an extra day but Brendon Todd didn’t mind the wait. For the second time in as many starts, he is a PGA Tour winner after a Monday finish at the Mayakoba Golf Classic. 

Todd shared the lead with Vaughn Taylor when play was suspended because of darkness on Sunday evening at the El Cameleon course in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. When Todd returned a day later, he pulled ahead with a 20-foot birdie putt on the 15th hole, then held on for a one-shot victory over Taylor, Carlos Ortiz and Adam Long. 

“It’s incredible,” Todd said. 

Indeed. 

Just over a year ago, Todd thought about giving up the game after a long battle with the full-swing yips, during which he missed 37 of 40 cuts and plummeted outside the top 2,000 in the world. He eventually worked his way back, and two weeks ago in Bermuda won for the second time in his PGA Tour career and first since 2014.

It is incredible.  Though the field strength in the first win was comparable to the B-Flight of club tournament, and this one wasn't a whole lot better.  But the back from the dead is always a great story...  especially if the "Y-word is invoked."

Shane Ryan has the full Todd roller coaster here.  Anyone that's dealing with even the slightest yippiness should think twice before clicking through.

Kooch never threatened to defend, but did have an ace on Sunday.  Fortunately, before making the obviously-lame joke, Dylan Dethier informs that everyone else already has.  

Stage, Cleared - The ladies get the stage this week.... if you ignore that little get-together at the Loves (more below).  Beth Ann Nichols sets the stage for their season wrap:

CME’s commitment to raise the bar sends a message to current and potential sponsors, and everyone else, that women’s golf deserves more. There are favorites – World No. 1

Jin Young Ko, Nelly Korda and Lexi Thompson to name a few ­– but Caroline Masson believes that any of the 60 players here can win the CME. In fact, she’s hoping someone unsuspecting grabs the title to further illustrate the depth of the LPGA. Twenty different players have won on the women’s tour this season. The last player in the field to gain entry happens to be Lewis, a former No. 1. 

Since turning pro more than a decade ago, Lewis has watched too many of her peers leave the game due to financial strain. 

“There’s really only a handful left,” she said of friends who turned pro around the same time. “It’s a lot of pressure to play to pay somebody back that loaned you money. You can’t think about winning a golf tournament when you’re thinking about that.”

So, more money is better than less?  Noted.

There isn't much more than that here, combined with the requisite griping about how much more the men make.  There is a little metaphysical musing, which I find endearing:

Rory McIlroy left East Lake with $15 million for winning the FedEx Cup this year. 

“If you win $15 million in one week, what do you do?” asked Jenny Shin. “Buy five Ferraris?” 

At 27 years old, Shin has earned more than $4 million inside the ropes and thinks often about money in big-picture terms. 

“You start thinking how much is enough?” asked Shin. “How much will I need to earn to be happily retired? Is there such a thing as happily retired?”

So, pretty much like the rest of us, though st a far younger age....  But this final 'graph is at least encouraging:

“Hopefully we can convince more people that we deserve to play for that kind of money,” said Masson, “and deserve the attention we get for it, too.”

It's a subtle point, but at least Carolyn Masson understands that it has to be earned....  Perhaps, Carolyn, you could take Stacey Lewis aside and explain that to her?

Beth Ann has this second piece up as well:

Solitary game: Loneliness can be one of the hardest parts of life on LPGA

“I’m a firm believer that whether a player is successful or not on tour,” said Stupples, “is how comfortable they are with that loneliness.” 

There are no teammates in professional golf. Players are constantly surrounded by competitors, and it takes effort to make friends. Even winning can be lonely. 

When the hugs and handshakes and press conferences are over, the victor often walks out of the clubhouse to the startling realization that the tour is gone. The traveling circus has packed up and moved on and, unless family is on the road, there are times the winner is left standing alone with the trophy.

Does it seem a bit of a pity party out there?  It's tough for the young kids coming up for sure, though there's not much of a market for the whining.  But is this the week to have this discussion?

The Issues of Our Time - The Fried Egg tackles the issue of our era:

Just the Yolk: Should Bunkers Be Intensively Maintained?

Hmmm, isn't that an interesting question?  Geoff gives away his thoughts in the famous quote he uses as his header today:

If I had my way there would be a troupe of cavalry horses running though every trap and bunker on the course before a tournament started, where only a niblick could get the ball out and then but only a few yards. I have seen a number of traps and bunkers that afforded better lies and easier strokes than the fairway. This, of course, is ridiculous. C.B. MACDONALD

It was so unlike Macdonald to have strong opinions on such matters.... Not!

Here's a bit from Garrett Morrison's piece linked above:

To avoid player complaints about bunkers, courses have to increase spending. In turn, green fees go up. This is a vicious circle that sometimes leads to closure. 

“What I think would surprise many golfers is that there are definitely courses that spend as much—or even more—per square foot on bunkers as they do on greens,” George Waters told me. Waters is Manager of Green Section Education for the USGA and wrote Sand and Golf: How Terrain Shapes the Game. “And it’s golfer expectations that drive that spending.” 

Just as pressing as financial issues, according to Waters, are opportunity costs. The more time greenkeepers devote to bunker maintenance, the less they have for other tasks. 

“The list is basically endless,” Waters said. “For lower- and mid-budget courses, the extra time can make a big difference in improving conditions on greens, approaches, and fairways. That could be more time spent hand watering, more time making irrigation repairs, more time nursing weak areas back to health.”

Obviously showing alternatives, this photo from The Sheep Ranch, the new Bandon course with no bunkers, demonstrates there are alternatives:

Here's Garrett's conclusions:

“Even for people who strongly prefer bunkers to be smoothly raked on a daily basis,” George Waters explained, “if the choice is between that and reduced quality on the greens and fairways, or not having a golf course to play at all, I would hope the decision to scale back bunker maintenance is something most people could live with.”

To return to the original question, bunkers have to be perfectly raked because, right now, the majority of golfers expect them to be. The more we chip away at that expectation, the more sustainable the game will be.

Aren't these the kind of issues we should be discussing more frequently?   Because w eall fall into this trap, including at my club where we're currently spending in seven figures because we're tired of our balls plugging i the bunker faces.  Of course we all know and accept that it's completely different when it happens to my ball....

The Season of Love - Per The Forecaddie, it's the event of the season:

As far as The Man Out Front is concerned, the best Tuesday night meal of the golf year

isn’t the Champions Dinner at Augusta National. That may be the most coveted invite, but The Forecaddie can attest that it doesn’t get much better than the RSM Classic’s pro-am draw party hosted in a tent in the backyard of former U.S. Ryder Cup captain and World Golf Hall of Famer Davis Love III. 

This is the 10th year Love has played host to more than 250 of his newest and closest friends willing to fork over $8,000, or $22,000 for a threesome, for the opportunity to play in the tournament pro-am on Wednesday. There’s nothing else on the PGA Tour quite like a night under the oaks feasting on the best low-country cuisine that can be had at DL3’s digs, A.K.A. Sinclair Plantation. So, how did this become a tradition like none other? As Love tells it, we have John Linen to thank – not the Beatle, but the former vice chairman of American Express. 

“He wanted to do special outings at Sea Island. I said, ‘Why not just have them over to my house,’ ” Love tells TMOF. “When he said he was talking about 100 people, I said, ‘We’ll put a tent outside.’ He said, ‘Really?’ I told him, ‘What would be better than telling your clients they’re having a dinner party at our house?’ When we pitched RSM, we told them it would be an intimate affair like the old Callaway Gardens (Southern Open) and the Crosby Clambake (AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am) with southern hospitality. It started out with a normal pro-am of 40 teams and has grown to 80.”

It's a nice story of how Davis has helped build this community and tournament.  If we have to have this part of the season, the down-home feel adds a nice touch.  That said, TMOF's comparison to the Tuesday in April seems unwise and unnecessary.  

I don't know how much of it will be on display, but Davis has just finished a restoration of the second course at Sea Isle.  Admittedly, the header is a head-scratcher:

Ooh, chocolate drops! Plantation Course gets a new/old look

Plantation is the oldest course at Sea Island. The Walter Travis design opened as a nine-hole course in 1928, shortly before the Seaside nine that was designed by Harry Colt and Charles Alison. 

“We like classic design,” Love said. “We feel like this is a historic resort and it needs a historic-looking course.” 

Plantation’s historic feel had faded after nearly a century of play and a renovation in the late 1990s. This latest renovation draws upon the designs of architects like Travis, Seth Raynor and C.B. MacDonald. 

Those men designed some of Love’s favorite courses, including Chicago Golf Club, Mountain Lake in Lake Wales, Florida, and two courses in Charleston, South Carolina: Yeamans Hall and Country Club of Charleston. It was a collaboration between Love, his brother Mark, and Scot Sherman, an architect with Love Golf Design who worked closely with Dye for many years. 

They replicated those classic courses by creating sharp angles and straight lines, producing a look that was distinctive from the neighboring Seaside course and its big, bold bunkering. The renovated Plantation course also offers more of the scenic views that its neighbor is known for. The new course is flatter – many Golden Age designs were built on flat ground – and brush was cleared to offer more views of the Atlantic Ocean and St. Simons Sound.

A lot of name-dropping there, but what names they are!  Shall we geek out further?

Some of Plantation’s new greens are squared-off instead of round. Flat bunkers with vertical grass faces were built. Railroad ties provide a stark delineation between grass and water. Grass mounds known as “chocolate drops” were placed on several holes.

A Principal’s Nose bunker, inspired by the one at St. Andrews, was built on the 10th hole and odes to other old-school template holes, like the Redan and Punchbowl, were built at Plantation.

 As for that header?  

These features are evident from the start, as the “chocolate drops” are visible from the first tee and the new green evokes the Biarritz design that was often built by Macdonald and Raynor. Railroad ties front the second green. These long, wooden boards are often associated with Dye’s designs, but it’s a concept that he got from his travel to Scotland. It’s another look Love enjoys, as he’s won five times at the Dye-designed Harbour Town and twice at TPC Sawgrass, which host the RBC Heritage and THE PLAYERS Championship, respectively.

It's a reference to mounding, though the source seems unclear as per this Golf Club Atlas thread.  

DLIII has ticked off all the right names.  Now we get to see if he delivered the goods....

Harshing The Mellow - The mysterious Tweeter d/b/a Nosferatu posts this disturbing update on Olympic Golf:

That is the qualifying field for Olympic Golf in Tokyo, as of earlier this month.  Take a minute to peruse the deep field... Notice anyone prominent that wouldn't make it?

As I recall, Tiger's win at the ZoZo put him 6th in the OWGR and, as the fourth highest ranking Yank he would qualify.  Subsequently, the X-man passed him by, rendering Tiger a nonperson to the IOC.

Now, you'll not need me to tell you that there's quite a lot of golf to be played, so perhaps we should defer our panic.  

Geoff had this quick take:

Maybe because Rio offered the first Olympic golf in over a hundred years, the run-up featured far more coverage than the upcoming Tokyo 2020 golf. Or maybe there just isn’t much interest in golf at the next Games because the unimaginative format remains. Anyway…

Yeah, the format sucks, but that field is pretty weak as well.  I men, yeah, it's got the best Slovakian player ever, but still....

But perhaps there's a silver lining?  None of us can know Tiger's competitive future, as the ZoZo was quite the surprise after his summer fade.  But it seems clear that he can't play too often so, despite his professed desire to play in Tokyo, that's at best a heavy lift.  Of course, those Hero World world ranking points will be helpful...

But perhaps leaving the one player out who could generate some buzz might allow us to revisit that qualification process, and the format as well?  Nah, that's crazy talk.  The faith of our game's leadership that putting on this dreary spectacle will help grow our game is curious, at best.