Late-Week Loquacity

Week Two of the Great Return has begun and I'm guessing that folks have already tuned out...  You might remember that last week Jim Nantz deigned to work on Thursday and Friday.  This week features Whit Watson in the 18th hole tower.  When your event isn't important enough for Terry Gannon to get on a plane, perhaps it's not sufficiently important to watch.

Dateline: Hilton Head - Round 1 is in the books, and I'm pleased to report no ill effects from the swabbing:

Ian Poulter and Mark Hubbard lead

Ian Poulter stomped his feet on the video on his social media feeds. He scratched his head. He then slapped it 10 times. He felt plenty of discomfort during his coronavirus nasal test before the tournament and had to let it out.

He continued to do so during his first round, as he shot a bogey-free, 7-under 64 to share the first-round lead with Mark Hubbard. On 17, Poulter dropped a 31-footer to get to 6-under, and he closed his round by knocking his approach to within 4 feet and dropping the birdie putt.

Hubbard was 3-under through two holes and 5-under through six, and he added two more birdies on the back nine for his 67.

Poulter and Hubbard were a stroke ahead of seven golfers.

It's very much the kind of golf course on which you can see Poults competing.  Mark Hubbard is the 164th ranked player in the world, so you're excused for not recognizing the name.  Alas, I can't bo so forgiving of myself, given that I'm supposed to know something about this here game.

 The big names

As the second tournament after the PGA Tour’s three-month hiatus due to the coronavirus, the RBC attracted many of the world’s best, and many were among the top of the leaderboard.

Brooks Koepka, Rickie Fowler and Bryson DeChambeau were among the group at 4-under. South Carolina native Dustin Johnson was at 3-under. Rory McIlroy, the world’s top-ranked player, struggled to a 1-over.

No player over a six-hole stretch was hotter than Jordan Spieth. 

After starting on the back nine (where he triple-bogeyed the 12th), Spieth birdied the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th, then added another at the 9th for a 5-under 66 round.

One of the surprises of the nascent restart is the presence of fans.  Last week they were perhaps more vocal, but this is to me a nice story:

Two months ago, when the PGA Tour announced it was coming back to Hilton Head 

The Pecko's View.

Island, S.C., for this week’s RBC Heritage, Julie Owens had an idea. Her parents, Joe and Kitty Pecko, had been quarantining in South Florida, and she knew they’d be game for a break. Especially her dad, a big golf fan. 

So when Owens found a Sea Pines Resort rental off the 18th fairway at Harbour Town Golf Links, this week’s host venue, she called her parents. 

“Why not rent this?” she asked them. “You can sit from the balcony, you don’t have to go outside, and there’s a kitchen here.” 

“I’m all in,” her dad said. “Book it.”

People can be clever for sure...  Just don't try this in Detroit in two weeks, as Governor Half-Whit won't hesitate to lock you up...

In case you didn't think this through fully, one can't do this on their normal April dates:

The irony? If this tournament would have been played in April as scheduled, this view would have been completely obstructed due to grandstands.

Care for another nice story?

Of all the courses Matthew NeSmith has played in his life, Harbour Town Golf Links, site of this week’s RBC Heritage, is his favorite – and for good reason. 

The South Carolina native won the Junior Heritage on the Pete Dye layout in Hilton Head, South Carolina, in 2011, the Players Amateur in nearby Bluffton in 2015 – which earned him an exemption into the Heritage – and the famed 18th green overlooking the Calibogue Sound is where he dropped to one knee and popped the question in 2018 to Abigail, his now wife. 

It’s also where he carded seven birdies en route to a 5-under 66 on Thursday to join the trophy hunt for his first PGA Tour title. 

“This course fits my game nicely, especially if I play well,” NeSmith said. “I’ve been around here a couple of times. So I’m pretty excited about it.”

What?  OK, I promise that will be the last "nice" story today...  Yeah, i know that's not what you come here for, but I'm hoping this will be one of the 5% of marriages that survive the lockdown...

So, we mentioned Jordan above.  This seems about right:

Jordan Spieth remains golf's biggest thrill ride

On Thursday at Harbour Town, those pyrotechnics exploded both in the proverbial sky

and stands, Spieth bouncing back from an early triple bogey with eight birdies to shoot an anything-but-routine 66 at the RBC Heritage.

“I’ve been making a lot of putts. I’ve been making a lot of birdies in my rounds,” Spieth said. “Just tried to position myself each hole to have a decent look.”

“Decent look” is not how we would describe the start of Spieth’s first round. On the 12th hole (his third), Spieth’s tee ball went OB, and he followed that mistake with a three-jack.

“Yeah, you can’t miss right on 12. I knew that. In the air, it was fine. It was just going to be in the trees, whether I could punch it to the green or punch out,” Spieth said. “I hit a tree, and it went about 20 yards to the right across the cart path out of bounds. It wasn’t really—it wasn’t an out-of-bounds shot, it just got kind of a tough break.

“Then my three-putt was sloppy there. All of a sudden, I’m three over through three, and you start to see guys going two under through two, two under through three early. It’s not a great feeling.”

Even back in the day when he was racking up majors, he seemed to have a penchant for the big miss.  Here's some more, highlighting that which seems the more recent problem:

Watching Spieth is a ride, man, and that’s not said in jest or ridicule. It is a ride that’s been running for three years, since his last victory way back at the 2017 Open Championship, yet doesn’t feel repetitive. Fact is, it’s the most riveting thing in the sport.

Yeah, yeah, we hear you. The Tiger sightings and Rory runs and Bryson bombs, each and all enticing theater. But go down the hall and make a right into the Golden Child Auditorium, because that’s where the action is.

Who else can drop 40-footers with ease but three-putt inside three feet? Lead the field in approach (gaining almost four strokes over the morning wave) one round only to look like he’s playing with left-handed clubs the next? Be Dr. Jordan on Thursday and Friday (first on tour in Round 1 last year, ninth in Round 2 scoring ) and Mr. Spieth come the weekend (170th in Round 3, 187th in Round 4)?

Troubling, for sure.  

And just to show we're always on the lexicology beat, this is an ESPN header:

Jordan Spieth drains career-high six straight birdies

Gentlemen, in this great game of ours we do not sink or drain birdies, though we do, of course, drain birdie putts.  Please update your style book accordingly.

Shall we check in on the microphone wars?  Folks do seem to be over-reacting to this, but Adam Hadwin made good on his promise to wear one for us all.   Now I would put Hadwin in that category of players least likely to deliver anything interesting, but that list is understandably over-populated with Canadians...

Bit fate intervened, as Hadwin...well, there's no other way to describe it, screwed the pooch:

Playing the par-4 13th hole at Harbour Town Golf Links, the Canadian had hit his drive into a fairway bunker. That’s when the drama started.

Hadwin crouched down and removed a tiny rock from behind his ball—perfectly allowable under the Rules of Golf. But when he went to remove what he thought was another rock, it crumbled in his fingers.

Oops.

“Uh oh, I’m pretty sure that’s a penalty, what I just did there,” Hadwin said to his caddie—and to the entire TV audience watching at home thanks to his live mic. “I thought it was a rock. So I went to grab the rock and the sand squished in my fingertips. I’m pretty sure that’s a penalty.”

Hadwin then called for a rules official and again explained what happened.

“I removed a rock and then I went to remove what I thought was another rock, and as I grabbed said rock it crumbled, because it was actually sand,” he said. “It looked like a rock to me, that’s why I was trying to remove it.

“I assume it’s a penalty.”

Indeed it was: Two strokes. Instead of a par, Hadwin, who laid up from the sand (his approach to the green was blocked by trees) before sticking his wedge to three feet, made a double-bogey 6 on the hole.

I caught a bit of Hadwin earlier in his round, and the commentary was of the milquetoast ilk.  But I'd have liked to have caught this bit:

Getting to listen to the entire conversation was a treat for viewers at home, many of

whom certainly could empathize with Hadwin. He was the only person who knew what had happened when the sand crumbled in his hands, but quickly spoke up. 

When the rules official made sure his services were no longer needed, Hadwin showed his sense of humor with one final exchange.

“Thanks,” Hadwin joked to the official as he drove away. “Well, not thank you, but, yeah. Screw you, but thanks.”

No, thank you Adam for the entertainment.

A Canadian with a sense of humor?  That's not something often seen in the wild.... 

It's been interesting to see the intensity of the negative reaction from certain players to wearing a microphone, especially since it's specifically an opt-in process.  This from Mr. Koepka included:

Asked about his thought on players wearing microphones after his first round at the RBC Heritage Presented by Boeing, Koepka didn’t hold back. 

“I don’t understand why they want us to wear a mike when there’s a boom mike that stands 10 feet away from every shot that I hit,” Koepka said after opening with a 4-under-par 67 in his first start at Harbour Town Golf Links. “If the announcers would just shut up and listen, you could hear every word that we’re talking about.”

That triggers two obvious questions, one about the normal broadcast and the second about the reduced-footprint broadcasts.  I actually don't know how much additional audio the pick up.  One assumes they have mic's on tees and greens, and use roving boom mics for everything in between, and we assume there's less of that in the current circumstances.

For the Hadwin incident above, I assume that the best case was to get a mic in position as it was ufolding, but would have missed that early part of it, perhaps the best bits.

Dateline: Carmel-By-The Sea - I'll readily admit that the early phase of Tiger Woods, Golf Course Architect, has been a pleasant surprise.  Not that I've seen or played anything he's touched, it's more that he speaks about his work in terms of the recreational golfer's enjoyment.  One aspect of this is an embrace of short courses, and has just revealed a rendering of what will inevitably become his signature short course:

Pebble Beach and Tiger Woods — it’s a match made in heaven.” So said Pebble Beach Co. CEO Bill Perocchi when GOLF.com reported late last year that Woods would be redesigning the Peter Hay Par-3 course. On Thursday, Woods and Pebble released renderings of the new course — and it looks awesome. 

Woods’ TGR design firm announced that they would be revamping the site of the former short course to include the following: 

– A 670-yard short course with holes ranging in length from 47 to 106 yards 

-A 20,000 square-foot putting course which can be re-routed whenever it needs to be 

-A 5,000 square-foot food-and-bev hangout area with indoor and outdoor seating and views of the course and the ocean expanses beyond.

Bev? 

This is a gig so sweet that I'm unsure that even I could screw it up....

I expect it will be a lot of fun, though this seems a bit hard to pull as far inland as they are:

Four holes now play directly down-view, so to speak, heading out towards Carmel Bay. The signature hole is likely to be No. 2, which is a 106-yard gem built as an exact replica of the iconic par-3 7th on the big course. That’s pretty cool because, as Woods points out, not every golf-mad tourist will get to play No. 7 on the big course.

Couldn't they just stop by Jim Nantz's  backyard?

Dateline: Mamaroneck, NY - Max Adler is lucky enough to be a member there, and files a report on the club on the week of its intended close-up:

How will The Foot hold up against the new breed of bombers? Will Dustin Johnson be able to fit his cut-drive over the trees on the dogleg-left fifth hole, which has been converted to a par 4. Who will take on the new Shamrock bunker from the back tees at

the 14th? Who has the touch for the knuckled greens, which were soggy and slow in 2006. We’ll have to wait for the unusual date of Sept. 17-20, likely without fans, to find out. Three months might not seem like much, but these answers are pressing because a lot has happened at Winged Foot in the past decade, including a major restoration by Gil Hanse and the tenure of superintendent Steve Rabideau, who is as brilliant a grassman as anyone in the grill room can remember.

Rabideau is also a bit ornery. The tuning of the golf course for this specific week has been his priority numero uno since he took the job. The rough on the West, a blend of rye and bluegrass and poa annua, just popped. Like magic, it’s twice as thick as the rough on the neighboring East Course. How will it survive the hot summer? Sitting in a cart, Rabideau exhales smoke from his cigar with a faraway look. Come fall, the grass blades will inevitably thin to produce both good lies and bad lies in the rough. Right now, they’re all bad, which is good, even at two inches height.

If you're in search of a silver lining, we've got you covered:

Other than two minor staging platforms, there is no stadia or much of anything currently built at Winged Foot. Just two empty courses and a variable breeze of feelings coming from many directions. While the prospect of no fans means a deflated atmosphere and a serious financial blow from the loss of corporate-tent sales, a silver lining is the East Course will be spared its usual damage from tractor trailers, port-a-johns and other notorious feet-draggers. And like any golf course in the country, the regulars are simply happy to have a place to play coming out of quarantine. For the first time in the club’s nearly 100-year history, a strict online tee-time reservation system is in place to prevent the traditional method of groups social gathering around the first tee to establish play order. And with the weather so good and people working from home, you better believe the tee sheet is stacked.

There's actually another silver lining, as September is actually the perfect month for an event in the Northeast.  It's typically when greens are their fastest, because supers no longer have to fear losing them to the heat.  Of course, it's 2020, and we know how that's going so far... so I'm taking pestilence in the office pool.

On a somewhat related note, Shane Ryan presents the fifteen best U.S. Opens of all time, with an assist from USGA historian Michael Trostel.  I guess all the usual suspects are accounted for, though Hogan  '51 might have warranted inclusion.  I'll sample those of which you might be unfamiliar, such as Bobby Jones' spot on Jordan Spieth impression:

15. 1929, Bobby Jones, Winged Foot

This one was only an honorable mention for Trostel, but I’m bumping it up into the top 15 due to the fact that it had a great potential impact on history. Jones was up five shots coming down the stretch, but made a disastrous triple bogey on 15. When Al Espinosa birdied 16 and 17, Jones found himself facing a 12-foot par putt on the 18th hole just to make a playoff. It wasn’t easy—a left-to-right breaker—but he nailed it. Playoffs were 36 holes then, and the next day Jones won by a tidy 23 strokes. Yes, you read that right, 23 strokes. So it wasn’t mega-dramatic at the end, but think about the consequences. There were whispers that Jones might have retired if he had blown that tournament, and even if he didn’t, would he have had the confidence to put together his famous Grand Slam year in 1930?

Espinosa got the full Bobby Jones, for sure.  Jones interceded with the USGA to push back the start time of their playoff so that his opponent could attend church that Sunday morning, and joined him there.  Then obviously went into beast mode in the playoff....  I also understand that it wasn't just any 12-footer on the 72nd hole, but a downhill, side-hill twister, no surprise if you're familiar with the green.

If I were to remove any of his fifteen, it would be this one or perhaps Ken Venturi.  But it is quite the oddity, and shares oppressive heat in common (the oppressive heat troika would also have to include Jones in the slam year of 1930 at Interlachen):

T-13. 1931, Billy Burke, Inverness

This one makes the list because of the sheer endurance required to win. The championship was still in the 36-hole playoff era, and as it happened, Billy Burke and George Von Elm finished their 36-hole playoff … in a tie. That meant 36 more holes, with Burke prevailing by just one stroke. In all, the two men played 144 holes—two tournament’s worth—in five days. Obviously, that is a stroke-play record in majors. Temperatures rose as high as 105 degrees, and Von Elm is reported to have lost somewhere between nine and 15 pounds, while Burke boasted of smoking 32 cigars. Shortly after, the USGA wisely changed the playoff format to 18 holes and moved the championship from July to June.

That's a lot of golf, ironic in that they've now reduced playoffs to all of two holes.

That was good fun, but how about we now do the fifteen worst Opens?  Although I might need a bigger blog...

One last bit on the Open, a browser tab that's reached its sell-by date:

The field for this year’s U.S. Open at Winged Foot might not look appreciably different than it has in previous years. At least that’s what the USGA is hoping to achieve.

With all local and sectional qualifying canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, this year’s championship, postponed to September, will be populated entirely by players selected via various exemption categories—many that already exist and have for some time, and others created for what the USGA hopes is a one-time occasion.

“We're trying to create exemption categories that when we produce a field and when we start playing on that Thursday of the championship proper, people will look at the fields and say, ‘You know, they didn't have qualifying, but wait, that looks pretty close to what a U.S. Open field might look like,’” John Bodenhamer, senior managing director of championships for the USGA, told Golf Digest as part of a wide-ranging telephone interview, a portion of which was reported on Monday. “We are looking at data, we are looking at those who play year in and year out in the championship and qualifiers. We want to kind of turn over every stone to build a field.”

What the hell is he talking about?  

“Our endeavor,” Bodenhamer said, “is that when we release what the exemption categories will be this year, we’re going to at least give people an opportunity to in various categories who normally compete in the U.S. Open the opportunity to participate.

“It won’t be perfect,” he added. “We know that, and we hope people understand that it falls in line with what occurs through qualifying. Sometimes some good players don’t make it through qualifying.”

It actually sounds like a disaster in the making.  Here's a thought so crazy it just might work.  How about you invite the top 144 players in the OWGR?  Maybe not literally, there are a few exemption categories such as recent champions and the U.S. Amateur winner, but you get my point.  Don't be cute, you're just gonna end up with egg on your faces and Mike will have to ask for yeat another mulligan.

What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - More on Phil at phifty:

Yet, when the party is over there’s a sobering reality to this crossroads in Mickelson’s tremendous career of 44 PGA Tour wins and five major championships. This week

painfully illustrates that. If COVID-19 never happened, they’d be playing the U.S. Open at Winged Foot starting Thursday, but Phil could have been sitting at home in San Diego because he hadn’t qualified, having dropped out of the top 50 in the World Ranking.

Maybe that’s a good thing, given the questions he’d be asked about one of the darkest days of his career—the double-bogey collapse on the 72nd hole at Winged Foot in the 2006 that cost him a U.S. Open title that achingly remains unsecured. Still, we’d expect him to choose a little pre-tournament queasiness and another shot at polishing off the career Grand Slam.

Mickelson previously said he’d refuse a special exemption from the USGA to play this year, leaving sectional qualifying as his only option, and that also has been eliminated, with the U.S. Open now set for Winged Foot in September. He’s not out of it yet, because the USGA has not revealed how it will establish the field. But Mickelson, at No. 61 in the world, needs to get something going regardless. In the calendar year, he’s made seven starts, with wildly disparate results—two placings of third with five missed cuts, including last week in the Charles Schwab Challenge.

The decision making was vintage Phil.  I just can't get my mind around the discussion with Bones in the woods to the left of the 18th fairway (don't we wish we had those boom mics then).  He considers himself one of the great wedge players ever, yet didn't like his chances of getting up-and-down if he had pitched out.  And apparently didn't relish his chances in a playoff with.... Geoff Ogilvy?

This is actually a pretty good piece in terms of addressing that which I usually characterize as Good Phil vs. Bad Phil, though strangely the latter fails to address that 2014 Ryder Cup presser.

E. Michael Johnson, one of Golf Digest's gearheads, has this interesting compilation:

Phil Mickelson's most memorable equipment moments

Here's a couple of bits from early Phil, that none of us likely remembered:

An early graphite guy

It’s been so long now that not everyone remembers Mickelson was with Yonex for the first eight years of his PGA Tour career. He won 17 times with the company’s equipment, including its graphite-shafted ADX Tour Forged irons and, later, its Super Rekin irons, making him one of the few players at the time to use graphite shafts. Later on, Mickelson admitted the shafts, at times, led to erratic ball-striking.

The ball that changed it all

While the Pro V1 revolutionized the golf-ball industry, it received a nice assist from

Mickelson. Although still on Yonex’s staff, Mickelson was considering a move. At the 2000 U.S. Open, Mickelson asked then Titleist head Wally Uihlein what the company had in its R&D pipeline. Uihlein told him of a “Laboratory Test Ball,” which would become the Pro V1. After the ball came out, Mickelson was a huge fan, hyping it as the biggest thing in equipment since steel shafts replaced hickory. He even suggested that positioning the ball on the tee so the seam met up with the clubface could produce extra yards.

But this is of course the one that folks need to be reminded of:

Sudden switch

Just before the 2004 Ryder Cup, Mickelson and Titleist parted ways, a curious move considering Lefty won his first major at the Masters earlier in the year. He signed with Callaway, and although he didn’t switch out all his clubs, he did have a Callaway driver, 3-wood and 4-wood in the bag at Oakland Hills. Paired with Tiger Woods during a foursomes match against Lee Westwood and Darren Clarke that was all square going to the 18th hole, Mickelson hit a 3-wood tee shot way left that wound up against a boundary fence, leaving Woods no shot and Mickelson with plenty of questions about the timing of the switch.

Look, E., if you're gonna tell a story, tell the full story.  The equipment switch famously involved Cally paying off a seven-figure gambling debt, so Phil's priorities are clear.

But we can see the importance he places on the event and his teammates, but I'm sure it was all Tom Watson's fault.

Lots to mull over, much of which I had long since forgotten.

On Dan -  Fathers' Day will likely not be as rich without the U.S. Open, but we can all console ourselves with Sally Jenkins' loving portrait of her father:

My father is, sadly, a fraud. There is the public account of him, and then there is my

private one, and the two don't agree at all. For instance, there is the Dan Jenkins who pretends he'd sooner burn small children with cigarettes than pat them on the head, and then there is the adoring, lenient father I know. There is the guy whose profane wit can force a sharp intake of breath, and there is the husband who has been devotedly married for more than 40 years. There is the cavalier veranda lounger who never seemed to take a note, and then there is the writer I've witnessed at home, who works with unswerving concentration.

My brothers and I might be the only people, apart from my mother, who know him for the suave faker he really is. At some point, your childhood becomes your own property, and you see it for what it was. While you were a child, it belonged to your parents, and they cast it in their terms.

"You're having a happy childhood," my father told me.

"I am?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I said so."

Sally made her own way as a Washington Post reporter, but I hope she knows that we weren't much fooled by his gruff exterior.  And I do miss him terribly.

Enjoy your weekend, and I'll see you Monday morning.