Midweek Musings

I'm a bit amazed that I continue to scrape together enough content to support thrice-weekly blogging....  Perhaps that's simply because everyone else is as bored as I.

About That Choice of Words - The Tour has released an extensive deck to the players, detailing the safety protocols to be employed.  All well and good, but color me a tad surprised they went with this imagery:

We've taken note previously that these pampered elites live in a bubble, but nice to have the Commish's buy-in.

Chief among the plan’s tenets is that COVID-19 testing will be required of players as a condition of competition, similar to that of the organization’s drug policy. Testing protocols will include three methods—a questionnaire, thermal reading and nasal swab or saliva test. Players and caddies will have to be screened pre-travel, upon arrival with all three methods and daily with a questionnaire and thermal reading.

According to the document, the results from nasal swabs will take at least 24-48 hours. Players who are waiting for test results may practice or play on-site but will have no access to course facilities.

Hey, we're changing shoes in the carpark, it won't kill them.

Beyond specifics about testing, the Tour’s plan involves a number of restrictions to be implemented at each of its first four events, which will be played without fans. They include tighter control over player- and caddie-restricted areas; clubhouse access, which will only be granted to those who have been cleared through testing; no family on-site and limited support personnel; disinfection of facilities; distribution of personal protective equipment, sanitary wipes and sanitizer; and restrictions on player and caddie movement within the city of the event.

In addition to players and caddies, the following individuals will be tested at each event: PGA Tour staff (including rules and scoring officials); media officials; security and player relations, select ShotLink staff; select tournament staff, player and caddie services; and starters, clubhouse staff and independent trainers.

Excluded for this list are the Media...the CBS crew as well as any ink-stained wretches that might be in attendance.  But that "limited ShotLink staff" is a curious bit, given that they only come in battalion strength.

This might fall into the "Steiny hardest hit" category:

Only those deemed essential—approximately 1,100 people in total—will be allowed on-site, with roughly 400 of them to be subjected to testing. Family will not be allowed on-site, nor will agents or managers. Coaches and interpreters, meanwhile, will be allowed but must follow social distancing guidelines of staying six feet apart, never having direct contact with the player or touching his equipment. Each player will be limited to only one support staff member on the practice facility or inside the ropes during a practice round.

Or it would, yanno, if Tiger had any intention of playing....

This comes as no surprise as well:

As for travel to tournaments, the Tour plans to provide charter flights between events for players and caddies, with up to 170 players and caddies allowed. PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions players will be charged $600/seat; caddies and Korn Ferry Tour players $300. All passengers would be required to submit to viral testing within 24 hours of departure and only passengers who test negative for the Coronavirus will be allowed to board the flight.

So a caddie is worth half of a player?  Hmmm, curious in that I had been reliably informed that a slave was worth 3/5 of a human being?  Seems they've experienced a bit of a devaluation, as have most of us non-essentials...

And because chicks dig the MBA-speak, we'll include this on the sponsor experience:

Gotta be a great time to be a sponsor...  No Pro-Am and only "essential" people allowed on-site, yet Jay is bringing the Yangtze Division of ShotLink volunteers....  

Rut-Roh - I have found the priorities of Seth Waugh and the PGA of America baffling, specifically the prioritization of the Ryder Cup over the PGA Championship.  The latter would have been this very week, but Kerry Haigh has revealed that there's trouble in paradise:

“We are basically going with both plans [playing with and without fans],” Haigh said. “We will restart and build out the infrastructure for spectators but also have an alternative plan if there were to be no spectators. Sort of a Plan A and a Plan A1. Both are

continuing to move forward and we’re hopeful things will continue to improve.” 

Although California began lifting its stay-at-home restrictions last week, the state is still trailing other areas of the country in its return to something close to normal. Haigh acknowledged there is also a Plan B. 

“We have been talking about [possibly changing venues],” Haigh said. “Ultimately, it’s going to depend on what the city, county and state allow us to do and not do. Safety of everyone is utmost in our mind.”

Well, nothing says Major Championship quite like empty grandstands... 

No word from Kerry on what those alternative venues might be....  But we're talking August, so it's sure to be south of the Mason-Dixon line....  

Shack does have this bit of schadenfreude in reaction:

Would this be a bad time to remind the PGA of the suggestion to play their championship outside the United States in Olympic years to make the schedule more palatable and bring international prestige to the decidedly fourth major? 

Australia can be beautiful in December as learn every year during the swing of events Down Under. It’s a thought…

Perhaps Italy?  Or perhaps they could go really bold and take the event to Wuhan?

Best Part of Covid-19? -  Admittedly a short category, to which I hereby add the liberation that comes from not having to wait until Friday afternoon to dump embarrassing news items.  Here we have just such a news story:

Davis Love III and Zach Johnson were officially named vice captains for the 2020 U.S. 

Oddly, the accompanying photo is not from the most recent cup.

Ryder Cup team on Monday.

The announcement was not a surprise; Golf Digest reported in January that American captain Steve Stricker would select Love and Johnson assistants for the September matches at Whistling Straits in Haven, Wis. Love and Johnson join Jim Furyk, who was tabbed as an assistant in 2019, as part of the U.S. braintrust.

“With the Ryder Cup it's important to surround yourself with quality individuals who you can lean on and who have the best interests of the team in mind,” Stricker said in a statement. “Jim (Furyk) and I have talked about this a lot in the last year and now we are happy to add two Ryder Cup veterans in Zach and Davis to the conversation with the goal of putting this team in a prime position to win. Both Zach and Davis share a passion to compete at the highest level and are strong communicators, which is important, especially when we’re in the heat of competition.”

Of course, the value of experience might be mitigated by the specific nature of said experience.  To wit, I'll readily acknowledge that Jim "Alas, Poor" Furyk is the man if your objective is to lose Ryder Cups...

Eamon Lynch shares his thoughts on this news, and one can hear him cackling in the background:

It was after the 2014 Ryder Cup debacle in Scotland — a week during which Phil Mickelson’s most effective shots came during the losing team’s press conference when he targeted skipper Tom Watson — that the American team decided to crowdsource the

captaincy. 

The PGA of America created an oft-mocked task force to reverse U.S. fortunes in the biennial event. Another undeclared objective was to ensure that future players wouldn’t be denied hugs or high fives from some grizzled legend who thought the only inspiration they needed was to see the Stars & Stripes run up the pole. 

Watson was 65 when he led his squad to Gleneagles, long removed from the weekly social circus on Tour, shoehorned into the role by then PGA president Ted Bishop, who idolized him. His leadership style — about as warm and fuzzy as a boxcutter to the face — grated on players. Europe won handily and the aftermath was ugly.

Let me try a thought experiment on y'all.  If Furyk wanted to lose in Paris, what would he have done differently?  Apparently the Ryder Cup Task Force is an arm of the government, because there's nothing a person can do that will get him fired...

But this next 'graph will require some parsing:

Determined to ensure greater buy-in from players on the choice of future captains, the PGA of America’s task force effectively handed control of the selection process to a small cadre of Tour players who had been appointed to the panel. One of their number was duly named captain for the 2016 Cup: Davis Love III, who had led the team to a narrow defeat in ’12. Love’s four vice-captains — Tom Lehman, Jim Furyk, Steve Stricker and Tiger Woods — were also fellow members of the task force star chamber. (Bubba Watson later received a pity position as VC).

First, was that the objective?  Or was it to just get Phil to shut up?   

Second?  Narrow defeat vs. epic collapse?  You make the call....

Eamon takes us through the history from 2014 on, the triumphalism after the home-game win in 2016 leading to what he calls a "painful loss" in 2018.  But I think Eamon errs in not starting his history in the years leading up to 2014, specifically the factors that led to Tom Watson being chosen by Ted Bishop.  Most tellingly, in what sense was 2018 different from 2014 and earlier?  The answer, alas, is that it differed in no discernible manner.... So, thanks, Phil.

In Rebuttal - You guys remember Gary Van Cynical?  He was a fixture at Golf Magazine for years, now banished to Morning Read.  We've had a couple of his items recently, but today we give our platform to his spawn, struggling professional golfer Mike Van Sickle:

The player who gets bumped from the field may be stocking grocery-store shelves to pay 

his mounting bills, such as what KFT player Erik Barnes has been doing at a Publix in southwest Florida during the coronavirus-imposed golf shutdown, just so Singh can get some “reps” to get ready when senior golf resumes. 

Obviously, the rules say Singh can play. A PGA Tour player can dip into the KFT if he isn’t eligible to play in a PGA Tour event during the same week. Singh, a World Golf Hall of Fame member with a lifetime exemption, is not in the field at the PGA Tour’s Charles Schwab Challenge on June 11-14 in Fort Worth, Texas. So, he can play his local KFT event, which is practically in his backyard. He lives in the Ponte Vedra Beach area and is a divot-making machine at the TPC Sawgrass range. Singh is within his rights to play, under tour rules, even if it’s like Phil Hellmuth showing up for the weekly $10 buy-in poker night at your neighbor’s house to “get some reps.”

And before you make a fool of yourself by telling him to play better:

Singh certainly doesn’t need a $3,500 Korn Ferry check for finishing 30th. The guy he’s bumping from the field probably does. He might need it badly. That’s why Singh shouldn’t play. A $3,500 payday is two or three weeks of expenses, if done right. 

Two years ago, I was a last-minute addition to a KFT tournament field in Omaha and hurriedly flew there on a Wednesday night. I had no practice round, no preparation and tied for 14th. That $9,300 check I earned was everything for me that year. It made up for some other disappointments. 

Just so you know, I don’t have a dog in this fight. I lost my Korn Ferry conditional-exempt status last fall when I didn’t get through Q-School. So, Singh wouldn’t bump me from the tournament. The best he could do is cut in front of me at Chick-fil-A’s drive-through window … if he comes to Pittsburgh.

Let's be clear, Mike, Veej doesn't care about you.  Don't take it personally, because he doesn't care about anything above and beyond his won needs.

Mike has some logical suggestions similar similar to points I've made as this story broke.  There's really two separate issues on offer, here the first and easiest to understand the the Big Fijian is also a Big A******e.  That's very much a dog-bites-man story, but it needs to be said.

The larger issue, as Mike makes clear, is that guy like Vijay just simply doesn't belong in a developmental tour event, no matter how close to his home it is.  So, let's acknowledge that and adjust the qualification guidelines accordingly....

Today In Long Reads - Lots to enjoy, and you'll not be surprised that this trip through golf's history appeals to your humble blogger:

Upcoming COVID charity events extend golf's long history of staging 'challenge' matches

Fortunately for us, John Strege goes deep, including this about the best player and most important figure of the pre-Tom Morris era:

More accurately, challenge matches are in vogue again. They are not new. In fact, they are old, but how old? Well, when doing an archeological dig for golf history, best to start by digging in the auld sod. Scotland. 

Robertson's Grave at the St. Andrews Cathedral. 

Here we find that in 1843, Allan Robertson of St. Andrews played another Scot, Willie Dunn, in a renowned challenge match, 20 rounds in 10 days on the Old Course at St. Andrews. Robertson, ahead by two rounds with one to play, was declared the winner.

It was not the first challenge match, but given Robertson’s place in golf history—the best player of his era, a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame and by some accounts the first golf professional—it’s a good place to begin. 

“Professional matches, first reported in St Andrews in the 1830s, were common by the 1840s,” the British Golf Museum website says. “The stakes, which were often high, were put up by backers, rather than the players.” 

At the time, these matches were the only way professionals could make money actually playing the game, though perhaps earning less than punters in the galleries holding winning hands. 

“Challenge matches are the life of golf,” Scottish professional Andrew Kirkcaldy wrote in his biography, “Fifty Years of Golf: My Memories,” published in 1927. “I wouldn’t give a button for an exhibition game. Man against man, and pocket against pocket, in deadly earnest is the thing.

Robertson gave Old Tom his start in the game, making featheries, because Tom could help him win said challenge matches.  They fell out over golf ball technology, but Tom's banishment to Prestwick led to his role in building the venue that hosted the early Open Championships.

Strege omits perhaps the most famous challenge match of all time, the Morrisses vs. the Parks at North Berwick, during which young Tom's wife went into labor with tragic results that changed the game forever.

Next up, an entry in that which we can all agree is a competitive category indeed:

Least popular tour pro, or did we all get him wrong?

The subject is J.C. Snead, best known for his epic 1979 Masters collapse.  Snead was an awkward sort, and his life and career prospects were forever damaged by this story from a Pro-Am:

Nothing has haunted and disturbed J.C. Snead quite so much as the Case of the Phantom 

J.C. with his Uncle Sam.

Pro-Am. It is a tale that seems to rank right up there with the story of The Vanishing Hitchhiker. The story travels. 

It has been reported as having occurred at four or five courses, but the details are consistent. The money involved is described as between $600 and $750, the putt of the amateur partner between two feet and six. The pro (J.C. Snead) has ignored his partners or grouched at them for 17 holes. Then, at 18, it dawned on him that they needed this dinky putt for a birdie to win it all. Suddenly, he was Mr. Goodwrench, friendly and helpful, lining up the putt and reminding everyone: “Now, pards, if you make that, we’ll win the pro-am and I’ll win $750.” 

Given that encouragement, the high-handicapper back-handed the ball across the green and into a bunker. Up yours. 

The only flaw in the story is the fact that Snead swears it never happened and no living soul has ever come forward to verify it. First reported in the fall of 1983, the anecdote has followed him from Orlando to Canada to Doral to San Diego. Not a week goes by that he isn’t asked or kidded about it.

Obviously the reality was far more complicated than that slur, but it followed him everywhere and cost him terribly.

See you further on down the road?