Fat Tuesday

Well, it is Tuesday, and your humble blogger is getting fatter by the hour....

I hadn't been planning to blog, but there's actual news.  We'll just call it a provisional schedule, the perfect analogy because we find ourselves lying three.

Mark Your Calendars - No doubt you've caught the headlines.  Golf's Four Families have chosen dates for their events:

In an attempt to salvage a season severely disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, golf’s leaders released details of a revised schedule Monday with the British Open being canceled altogether and a shift in dates for the remaining three majors.

The 84th Masters, which was supposed to be played this week at Augusta National Golf Club, has been re-scheduled for Nov. 9-15 in Augusta, Georgia. 

“We hope the anticipation of staging the Masters Tournament in the fall brings a moment of joy to the Augusta community and all those who love the sport,” said Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley. 

Instead, the PGA Championship will become the season’s first major. It is still expected to be contested at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco and has been pushed back to Aug. 6-9. The PGA had been played in mid-August for many years before relocating to May last year as part of a schedule change to finish the season before football began. To accommodate the PGA, the Wyndham Championship has shifted back one week to Aug 13-16, and the trio of FedEx Cup playoff events have also been delayed one week, with the Tour Championship in Atlanta now scheduled for Sept 4-7. 

The U.S. Open, which was originally to be held at Winged Foot in Mamaroneck, New York from June 15-18, will now be played Sept. 17-20, the week before the Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin, which remains intact.

Thank God they've addressed golf's biggest concern, and we can all breathe a huge sigh of relief that the Wyndham Rewards lives.  But still no word on the Hero World Challenge, so do stay tuned for that event's resolution.

No doubt you've noticed my genetic predisposition to second guessing, but this stretches those legendary capabilities beyond  load-bearing capacity.  Yesterday I noted that the PGA's August date seemed wildly optimistic.  If you'll allow me to add nuance, I actually think it's quite possible that virus contagion fears will dissipate quicker than it seems possible, I'm just skeptical that it will happen sufficiently early for an event with such a long lead time.

Ewan Murray, who recently wrote an unhinged column screaming at the USGA and R&A to immediately cancel their events, has this detail about that early reboot:

The US PGA Championship, to be held at Harding Park in San Francisco, is now due to tee off on 6 August. This appears optimistic given news from California over the weekend. After Donald Trump projected an “August or September” start for sport with spectators in the US, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, asserted: “I’m not anticipating that happening in this state. We have to be careful not to over-promise.”

It's interesting that the PGA of America would grab this date over the stated skepticism of the governor.  Every model that I'm seeing is overstating the numbers, but still it seems a strange choice.

But the strangest part is that they seem to be prioritizing the Ryder Cup over the PGA Championship.  Why not just move the latter to a date in September/October?  The golf ecosystem has been shut down and hundreds of players are losing their opportunity to play their way up the food change, but the PGA's priority is a 24-man exhibition?  

Perhaps this timeline from Geoff will help the reader envision how this all might play out:

TO BE CONFIRMED: June 15-21 (formerly U.S. Open week) – potential PGA TOUR event

CANCELED: July 13-19, The Open Championship, Royal St. George’s GC, Sandwich, Kent, England

TO BE CONFIRMED: July 13-19 (formerly The Open Championship week) – potential PGA TOUR event

TO BE CONFIRMED: July 27-August 2 (formerly Men’s Olympic Competition week) – potential PGA TOUR event

CONFIRMED: August 3-9 – PGA Championship, TPC Harding Park, San Francisco, California

CONFIRMED: PGA TOUR’s season-ending event/FedExCup Playoffs

August 10-16 – Wyndham Championship, Sedgefield Country Club, Greensboro, North Carolina

August 17-23 – THE NORTHERN TRUST, TPC Boston, Norton, Massachusetts

August 24-30 – BMW Championship, Olympia Fields CC, Olympia Fields, Illinois

August 31-September 7 (Labor Day) – TOUR Championship, East Lake Golf Club, Atlanta, Georgia

CONFIRMED: September 14-20 – U.S. Open, Winged Foot Golf Club, Mamaroneck, New York

RECONFIRMED: September 22-27: Ryder Cup, Whistling Straits, Kohler, Wisconsin

CONFIRMED: November 9-15: the Masters Tournament, Augusta National Golf Club, Augusta, Georgia

Now peak opprobrium is being reserved for the R&A, who simply can't be bothered to hold their marquee championship:

Royal St George’s, in Sandwich, will still have an Open slot but in July 2021. Martin

Slumbers, the R&A’s chief executive, said: “I can assure everyone that we have explored every option for playing the Open this year but it is not going to be possible.

“There are many different considerations that go into organising a major sporting event of this scale. We rely on the support of the emergency services, local authorities and a range of other organisations and it would be unreasonable to place any additional demands on them when they have far more urgent priorities to deal with.”

Perhaps you could consider reducing that scale....  You know our local rules at Unplayable Lies, when they tell you it's not about the money, it's about the money:

There are also commercial factors. Insiders have confirmed the R&A has a pandemic insurance policy that is almost identical to Wimbledon’s – cancelled last week – meaning it will be reimbursed for losses. The R&A’s funding of various grassroots projects will not be affected by a cancellation that ends the Open’s unbroken run since it resumed in 1946 after the war.

Wait for it... it's for the children.

I'll be interested to see how this decision ages.  To me, the money grab isn't a good look, and I suspect it will look far worse if these events come off remotely as per the schedule above.  At least the USGA and Fred Ridley are trying to hold their events, which up to now I would have thought would be the least we'd expect from golf's governing organizations.

Venue Blues - We can hope for a replay of Tiger's second U.S. Amateur, but lets' take a moment of sadness over this cancellation:

NEWPORT — Figuratively stationed on the 18th fairway with nothing more than a wedge to the pin, the U.S. Senior Open became the latest major sporting event to fall

victim to coronavirus pandemic. 

The United States Golf Association made a number of announcements Monday morning, including the cancellation of the U.S. Senior Open, to be played at Newport Country Club from June 25-28, and the U.S. Senior Women’s Open, slated for July 9-12 at Brooklawn Country Club in Fairfield, Connecticut.

 Here's a brief history of the club's outsized role in American golf history:

Newport Country Club is one of five founding members of the USGA, the others being Chicago Golf Club, Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in New York, St. Andrew’s Golf Club in New York and The Country Club in Massachusetts. 

Newport, with its historic clubhouse, hosted the inaugural U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur in 1895. In more recent times, the course along the Ocean Drive that overlooks the foot of Narragansett Bay, was the site of the 1995 U.S. Amateur, when a young Tiger Woods prevailed, and the 2006 U.S. Women’s Open won by Hall of Famer Annika Sorenstam.

That '95 Amateur was quite the week, as the mixture of Earl Woods and the patrician members proved to be highly combustible.  Brooklawn, by the way, might just be the best Tillie of which you've never heard.

Let's hope they can get back to Newport soonest, as we have too few opportunities to see her.

Today's History Lesson - Got a history question for you?  Can any of you history buffs tell me the winner of the 1871 Open Championship?  Anyone?  Bueller?

No doubt you've heard that this will be the first Open Championship cancelled since 1945.  There were also cancellations during the Great War, but also one other year in which The Open was not contested:

It’s the 26th time a major has been canceled. Fifteen majors were canceled during World

War II, and nine others were scuttled because of World War I. But more than 40 years before the war to end all wars, nearly 70 years before the war after that, and almost 150 years before the coronavirus pandemic plunged tournament golf into darkness in 2020, another major championship was canceled, and this one had nothing to do with a global war or the world-wide threat of viral Armageddon.

No, the 1871 Open was canceled for the lack of a trophy. 

OK, that might be a bit simplistic. But it’s somewhat true. When Young Tom Morris, the 1870 champion, earned the right to keep the tournament’s trophy – a challenge belt – by winning the championship for the third straight year, organizers couldn’t agree how to proceed with the tournament. The Open, soon to enter its teenage years, was going through growing pains and was in the process of evolving into the tournament we know today. That it wasn’t played in 1871 involved more than just a prize for the winner.

Couldn't they just give them participation ribbons?

If you haven't read Tommy's Honor (and, why the hell not?), here's a brief accounting for that first Open:

The Open was first played in October 1860, when the members of the Prestwick Golf Club, eager to provide an annual competition to determine the game’s best player, invited the various golf clubs of England and Scotland to “name and send the best players on their links” to play for a championship on the club’s 12-hole course. According to the Glasgow Herald, “the game was viewed with great interest by professionals, both in England and Scotland.”

You'll note that 12-hole course laid out by Old Tom Morris, but you might be surprised to know that the first hole was 575 yards....  And guess what par was?  Wrong again, the term par was still some fifty years away from being used in golf.

Quite the drama in 1870 as Young Tom sought the threepeat (a term even further into the future):

By 1870, The Open, then often referred to as The Challenge Belt, was a highly anticipated event, drawing many spectators, “including a goodly sprinkling of the fair sex,” according to the Herald newspaper. Much of that anticipation must have come from the fact Young Tom Morris was gunning for his third straight title and permanent ownership of the belt, a right that was denied his father Old Tom in 1863 when he finished two strokes back of Willie Park, Jr., after winning the championship in 1861 and 1862.

Young Tom didn’t disappoint, touring Prestwick in rounds of 47-51-51 to win by 12 strokes. “It will thus be seen that Young Tom Morris was yesterday the successful competitor for the third year in succession, and consequently carried off the belt,” reported the Herald.

Young Tom won in 1872 as well, but tragedy struck thereafter.  There's much more, including the history of the Challenge Belt's successor, the Claret Jug.

Got Your Masters For Ya - No Masters?  No problem:

We simulated the 2020 Masters using hard data. Here’s how the wild week unfolded

That’s what we asked DataGolf to help with. The wizards at DataGolf (check them out here) use statistics from the golf world to do all kinds of things: determine win percentages, aid golf gamblers, rank which players are actually the best in the world, etc. Much of that work reacts to players’ recent showings and analyzes what has happened and how it happened. But they have impressive predictive powers, too, so we asked them to turn their sights on golf’s ultimate target: Augusta National. 

DataGolf’s Masters modeling accounted for player skill and recent form, but also factored in historical performances at Augusta. That means a Sunday charge just might happen on the back nine with some tasty pin positions. (Hint: get ready!) Is there an element of randomness to the process? Of course! The first time you run a simulation, for example, will produce different results from the 7th or 23rd time you run it. But it’s still a ton of fun to see how things shake out. For what would have been the 84th playing of the Masters, we asked for the 84th single-run simulation of how DataGolf’s system would predict this year’s event. 

The 2020 (simulated) Masters kicked off as usual with Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player hitting ceremonial tee shots in front of giddy patrons. And we’re off!

Wait, before we get to Jack and Gary, who won the Par-3?  Any hole-in-one injuries?  Who caddied for Jack?

No spoilers here, you'll have to red it for yourself.  But they seem to have extrapolated from the real world as we knew it in early March:

With the 36-hole lead all but set at five under, the talk of the afternoon surrounded the cut line. Did reigning champion Tiger Woods have enough in him to make the weekend? After being sidelined for more than a month with back stiffness, Woods made it clear to the press he just couldn’t resist an opportunity to defend his 15th major. But while he may have made an appearance, his all-world ball-striking did not make the trip up from Jupiter. Tiger made just two birdies in an opening 74, and somehow one fewer in the second round. As we’ve come to understand, sometimes it’s there and sometimes it’s not. Woods was just off this week, and that was never more apparent than when he yanked an 8-iron short and into the bunker on 16, leading to a double bogey. 

After a second-straight 74, Woods’ placement on the weekend relied on the finish of Bubba Watson, who reached five under with a birdie on 16. But Watson missed birdie putts inside 8 feet on both 17 and 18, enacting the local 10-shot rule, keeping many hopefuls around for the final two rounds. Koepka and his 149 strokes were spared while Marc Leishman, Justin Rose, Collin Morikawa and fan-favorite Fred Couples were all sent home, missing the cut by one shot each (+6).

Freddie missed a cut at Augusta?  I guess it has to happen eventually...  Read it all if you can do so without deepening your despondency.

 I'll leave you with a wonderful present, this Dan Jenkins love letter to the Masters.  Strangely, I'm not even going to tease you with an excerpt from the piece itself....  If you don't know enough to read it...  well, there was that Heinlein quote from yesterday.  In stead, I'm going to quot this great bit from Editor Jerry Tarde's introduction to the piece:

At the 1984 British Open won by Seve Ballesteros, the legendary Dan Jenkins was 55

years old and at war with the managing editor of Sports Illustrated, who was a know-nothing knucklehead who didn’t appreciate golf, Dan or, for that matter, the English language. Perhaps to punish his boss, it’s been said Dan maybe didn’t give the game story his best effort, which led to a parting of the ways after more than 20 years of Dan being SI’s most important staff writer. He picked up the phone and called Nick Seitz, who was the editorial director of a group of sports magazines owned by The New York Times Co., which included Golf Digest. Seitz asked the editor of Golf Digest at the time if he were interested in hiring Jenkins and was told, “No, he’s over the hill.”

Sure.  After all, he only gave us another thirty-five years of his unique brilliance.

 It was a wonderful look back at a foregone era, one you'll be glad you read.

I'm sure I'll be back later in the week, just probably not every day.