Men At Work

One hundred and forty-eight people returned to their place of business yesterday, a very good thing indeed.  Actually two hundred and ninety-six, at least to the extent that we count folks like Fluff and Johnny Longsocks...  No, it won't make much of a dent in those unemployment numbers, but it was notable all the same.

The Obligatory Game Story - The game is very much a secondary story here, but old habits die hard:

Harold Varner and Justin Rose lead

Last week, Harold Varner, one of the few black players on Tour, shared a letter on his social media feeds in the midst of the social unrest following the death of George Floyd

in police custody on Memorial Day. He then shot a video with Tour commissioner Jay Monahan entitled “An open and thoughtful conversation.” On Thursday, he went out and fired one of the best rounds of his life.

Varner started with birdies on his first two holes and never made a bogey on his way to a 7-under 63, giving him a share of the first-round lead with Justin Rose. Varner hit all 18 greens in regulation, only the second time he’s done that in his career, and the first time that’s happened at Colonial in 10 years.

Rose, for a while, was on 59 watch. As part of one of the featured groupings with Bryson DeChambeau and Dustin Johnson, Rose shot 4-under for his front nine, then started his back nine with three birdies. He closed with six straight pars to give him a 63.

Many accounts went with this appropriate, if a tad obvious, framing: 

Harold Varner III lets clubs do the talking en route to share of Charles Schwab Challenge lead

I don't know who Jay pulled strings with, but having the only black player in the field share the lead after Day One is a stroke of good fortune, bettered only by his position in the TV window on Day One.  

I wouldn't have necessarily liked his chances heading into the event, as the burden he bears is substantial.  I very much liked his post-round interview with Todd Lewis as well, in which he made clear that we were seeing him in his office.  He's an appealing voice and personality, to me mostly because he wants only to be seen as a man and a golfer....  Scales on which he scores very nicely, thank you very much.  But, as the old Jewish joke goes, business is business...

The chase pack doesn't suck either:

As the first tournament on the calendar since March, the Charles Schwab Challenge drew an elite field – 16 of the world’s top 20 teed off Thursday – and the leaderboard did not disappoint in terms of star power. 

Thomas was in the group of players one shot behind the leaders. DeChambeau and Jordan Spieth each shot 5-under 65s. World No. 1 Rory McIlory, Patrick Reed, Brooks Koepka and Jon Rahm were in a large group of players at 2-under.

Phil Mickelson, one of the players in The Match: Champions for Charity, a few weeks back, shot a 1-under 69. 

Tom Lehman, 61, was also part of the 5-under group, his 65 the lowest round by a 61-year-old or older since 1980.

We'll circle back to some individuals of note, but first let's talk zeitgeist.

Thursday Has No Feel -  Admit it, Thursdays on Tour can be quite the snooze.  So, what did this most important of Thursdays, feel like?

Gary Woodland played his college golf at Kansas, where he competed in 50 tournaments

attended most by parents.

The first round of the Charles Schwab Challenge reminded him of those long ago and relatively lonesome walks at a Cleveland State Invitational or a Louisiana Classic. Woodland shot a nifty five-under 65 on Thursday, good for a share of seventh, a worthy achievement witnessed by few.

“It felt like kind of a practice round out there, same kind of energy,” he said—remotely—speaking to reporters seated in a different building, another example of the highly unusual week unfolding at Colonial Country Club. “But it was kind of peaceful, kind of going back to college days, and you kind of roll with it and stay within yourself.”

There was no one else to stay within.

I'm guessing that Just Like a Practice Round™ will not replace Live Under Par™, though it's at least better on the accuracy front. 

Some other reactions from those inside the ....errr, well, no need for ropes this week:

The spectator-free return of competitive golf stoked a lot of memories. To Bryson DeChambeau, the first PGA Tour round since March 12 felt like a U.S. Open qualifier (local or sectional, he didn’t say). Ryan Palmer, who hit the first shot at 6:50 a.m., said it felt like a typical Thursday at 6:50 a.m. Except that it felt like that all the way through to when he signed his scorecard, hours later, for 72.

Tom Lehman thought of his seasons on the old Ben Hogan Tour. Phil Mickelson called it “awkward.” Abraham Ancer said he played more quickly, not having to wait for someone taking the day off from work to stop moving in his peripheral.

Brian Harman said he noticed the concussion of drivers swirling around the course. He literally said “around the course.”

Colonial is a big place. But a lack of humanity tends to shrink a piece of property. You hear cart brakes. You hear voices from the next green over. You hear helicopters and tractor-trailers and train engines you cannot see. Now, throw in the absence of wind, which is odd for Texas, and you can even hear the commotion over on No. 15.

Actually, Colonial is very much one of the smaller places the Tour visits, but the absence of fans and grandstands made it seem far more expansive.

Mike Bamberger is one of the few golf journalists actually on site, and his is an observant set of eyes:

11:50 a.m. local time — Pat Perez, because he has a sense of humor, finished up his first round of this first tournament after this pause-for-Covid break, and put his thumb and forefingers to the tip of his black flat cap brim. He had made a superb up-and-down 4 on 18 for 69 and was responding to the fans ringing the green that existed only in his imagination. He then did an elaborate series of air fist bumps with his playing partners and their caddies and trudged up a paved path to scoring, where he signed his actual scorecard with an actual pen.

Pat is a funny guy, though not one CBS can risk with an open microphone.  And who among us can resist the siren's lure of a Tour driving range?

2:10 p.m. — The driving range here is almost a half-mile from the clubhouse, its tee running parallel to the 4th hole. (It’s a two-sided range and the players were using the

east side farther from clubhouse, because it allowed them to hit into the wind, as they prefer.) It’s almost business as usual at it, except the players and their caddies are actually scooping their own balls out of giant gray round trash cans marked “Laundry.” Titleist, Callaway, TaylorMade, Bridgestone and Srixon. Each has two tubs. Yes, it’s a hardship, all that bending and scooping, but you could stand there all day, where the bleachers would normally be, and not hear a complaint. Bernhard Langer, the oldest player in the field at 62, was on the range practicing after his first-round 70, as is his custom. He remembers a day when players actually had to pay for range balls, and there were stripes on them. No stripers at Colonial.

Lastly, Mike touches on life without TIO's:

3:50 p.m. — Fans make golf tournaments complicated, because they will do the darndest things at times with golf’s foul balls, and they ease things, by finding many errant shots. Tour rules officials expected to have lost-ball issues at Colonial, where the Bermuda rough is nearly three inches long but thin and dry, which creates conditions in which the ball drops straight down. Tony Finau, for instance, on the par-5 1st, hit his second shot hole-high and 10 yards left of the green and almost stepped on his nearly invisible ball before seeing it. In a normal week, a volunteer marshal or fans would have told him precisely where it was. But there are no fans here, and there are no marshals. But after nine hours of play, there had not been a single lost ball, and rules officials, scattered through the course, sat in their carts in the shade.

Probably would have been a grandstand there in a normal year, and he'd have gotten a sweet drop...  But interesting that not a single ball was lost.  Professional golfers, even with a 3-month layoff, are still very good...

 I Saw It On TV - There's not much to be found in the media on Golf Channel's broadcast, which operated under a host of constraints. or even an overnight estimate of the ratings.  From an ESPN account, I though we would have seen more on this:

Much was made of how players and caddies would deal with social distancing because

of the coronavirus pandemic. The PGA Tour offered up guidelines, like saying the players should pull clubs and caddies should wipe flagsticks and rakes, and offered a reminder to the players after the first practice round. 

Habits can be hard to break, which is why McIlroy asked for leeway from folks watching on television if they saw players too close or not following all of the protocols. 

Rose's caddie, Gareth Lord, held a wipe in his hands as he raked the bunker and replaced the flag on No. 17. Other caddies held flags with towels covering their hands. At least one caddie was wearing a mask, complete with a Los Angeles Dodgers logo.

Please tell me he was wearing it ironically, since baseball doesn't appear to be returning anytime soon.

 We did have those reports of players and caddies ignoring the guidelines, but let's remember that the guidelines are more than a little bit silly:

"We're trying to follow the guidelines, but it's amazing how routine and what you've done for 20 years kicks in, and you've got to keep reminding yourself," Rose said. "Definitely, I'm sure we all made a couple of mistakes out there, but we're definitely very conscious of what we touch personally and therefore who touches that next and how that's dealt with. I think, obviously, all the caddies are trying to do a good job with the flagstick because, obviously, that impacts the whole field, raking the bunkers and what have you. 

"Obviously, I'm staying with my caddie -- we've been in close proximity and kind of living in a little bubble together, so whether that be touching the golf clubs with a towel, I'm kind of relatively comfortable with that, but we've got to be cognizant of other people. Every surface you look at now, you've just got to kind of treat it as an unknown. It's interesting. But we're definitely doing our best to play by the guidelines, for sure."

Not only have all these folks tested negative, but it's a young and healthy group of folks (players and caddies for sure, though there is an issue with volunteers),  So, the purpose of maintaining social distance is...what, exactly?

The two aspects of the broadcast that have generated commentary both relate to audio.  With all the focus on players wearing microphones, this from early in the broadcast had me doing a spit take:

Even without any fans to cheer, there was quite a reaction to a birdie during the PGA Tour’s return — a very audible “F-bomb” at the start of Golf Channel’s telecast

Thursday. 

The network had been on the air for only a few minutes when the first shot from the afternoon round it showed was Jon Rahm chipping in at the par-3 eighth hole at Colonial.

“Pretty (expletive) good there,” someone was clearly heard saying from off camera while Rahm was still being shown on the screen. 

Because no spectators are allowed on the course this week, there was not the usual whopping and hollering from a gallery that would follow such a shot — and drown out anything being said around the green. It wasn’t clear who made the remark. 

“Well, we were hoping for better audio with no fans, surrounding the course,” commentator Jim Nantz then said on the broadcast. “Apologize if anybody was offended with what they may have heard there.”

Someone?  Maybe someone named Brooks Koepka?  

More substantively, Brian Wacker does a deep dive on the feed from Rickie's microphone, which he found a heck of a lot more interesting than your humble blogger did:

After the first two holes of silence—sans for the sounds of Fowler’s shirt moving as he

walked—viewers were welcomed into the conversation as Fowler and his caddie, Joe Skovron, shared their thoughts on a 154-yard approach with a 8-iron that sailed about 10 yards too far.

Fowler: “I didn’t see it playing that much. That flew the full number.”

Skovron: “It’s hot, ball’s jumping.”

Fowler: “Not gonna trust it without seeing it first.”

Two holes later, the analysis picked up. Faced with an approach from 204 yards, Fowler and Skovron thought through club selection out loud.

Skovron: “I thought it was a stock 6. What were you thinking?”

Fowler: “I was thinking stock to a little off, as long as it’s right of it, obviously.”

Skovron: “Correct, I like all of that.”

Good stuff, I quite agree, just not the earth-shattering kaboom some folks might have expected.  I just interpret Brian's piece through my own idiosyncratic lens.   Rickie, a very nice guy, was out there for five hours, and Brian found a handful of short exchanges worth recounting.  But on a day when he's playing poorly, which should make the reactions more interesting, and paired with two of his best buddies, it's just not a huge pay-off....  

The biggest problem with audio is not the F-bomb above, as amusing as that can be.  It's the inevitable banality of their conversations, which need to be carefully curated to contribute to the broadcast.  I'd always rather listen to Rickie (or any player) than Sir Nick, but that's an awfully low bar indeed.

I'll be interested to see the ratings when they're available.  I struggled a bit to stay interested, even after three months of house arrest.  Hard to imagine anyone not already a golf junkie would tune in and feel that it satisfied his sports Jones.  That's not meant as a knock on the GC/CBS crew, but Thursdays in our game tend towards the soporific. Today at least provides a dollop of drama as players fight to stay around for the weekend, but I don't expect that Thursday created too many new golf fans.

What's It All About, Alfie - Unless, of course, I'm wrong about that last bit.  Remember my blogging about those 700 ShotLink volunteers?  This is why they were needed:

 This isn't the future that I was hoping for...

DraftKings first started taking bets on golf at the 2018 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. Since then there's been numerous significant golf events, such as Woods' victory at the 2018 Tour Championship, his 2019 Masters win, two made-for-TV matches between Woods and Mickelson and a Ryder Cup. Yet none saw as much money wagered as the Charles Schwab, another reason this will be looked back on as a historic week for golf.

Is this a good thing for our game?  I can't help but believe that the Tour's embrace of and financial participation in betting is troubling, but it's easy to write that off as the rantings of an angry old man...

Random Thoughts - One of the players I was most curious to see (and hear) was the aforementioned Koepka, just because he was so lost before the game went into hibernation:

Koepka never lost his cool nor his confidence during the stretch. Still, the three-month break due to the COVID-19 pandemic was a blessing. A new and improved Koepka –

check out the fresh ‘stache – arrived at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, as the PGA Tour resumes pay with the Charles Schwab Challenge. 

“I got lucky,” Koepka said Wednesday at Colonial. “(The break) was definitely beneficial for me. I was able to kind of reassess where I was at, get the knee stronger. The knee is back. It’s a lot better. And then finally be able just to swing the club the right way and kind of get back to the process or the way of thinking that I had before. It’s been a blessing in disguise for me without a doubt.” 

Koepka has never been one to sweat, has always shouldered the blame and just moved forward. He thought he was on the right track at the Players Championship before the PGA Tour’s flagship event – and the Tour – was halted after the first round in March.

 He seemed to be swinging freely, not that he was especially sharp.

Of greater importance is that small animal above his lip.  Employee No. 2 thought it looked every bit as stupid as I did, though she categorically rejected my characterization of it as a porn 'stache.  Help me out here folks...what do we call it?

Bryson played well in the morning wave, so we'll see him in the TV window later today.  He's obviously gotten huge, and that size and strength is translating into the length he's propelling a golf ball.

But he's newsworthy today for this 15-minute cinema verite production capturing Bryson's quarantine, that I've not yet watched.  Fortunately Sean Zak summarizes his favorite moments, sparing us the necessity of actually watching it:

1. Squirrel B-Roll

Kudos to Bryson’s producer (unless it’s him working behind the camera, too!) for snagging some squirrel b-roll and having the gall to actually place it IN the montage of what he’s been up to. Was he in the backyard reading while a squirrel snatched birdfeed? Is this even at Bryson’s house?

It sounds great, so I'm sure you'll want to dive into it straight away.  Go ahead if you want, I'll be here when you get back.

As I said, he is really huge:

Tom Lehman?  I can't say I'm a fan of his being in the field, but he did have quite the day:

The 61-year-old shot a first-round 65 at Colonial Country Club on Thursday to place himself among the early leaders. It was Lehman's lowest score on the PGA Tour since the opening round of the 2011 Waste Management Phoenix Open.

To put Lehman's age in perspective, Bryson DeChambeau, one of the players Lehman was tied with in the morning wave, was still a junior in high school when Lehman last shot this low on the regular tour. Not that the five-time PGA Tour champ and 12-time PGA Tour Champions winner seemed too surprised.

"I've been aiming for this week for a while," Lehman told reporters. "I live in Arizona, and we've been able to play golf all the way through this COVID-19 thing, so I've been playing a lot, practicing a lot. My game feels pretty good. I love the golf course. It benefits people who put the ball in the fairway, no doubt. Today I hit it straight and made a few putts."

Obviously Tom himself understands my issues as per this:

With the senior circuit not resuming until July 31 with the Ally Challenge, Lehman was

happy for a spot in this week's field by virtue of being a former champ.

"I think the biggest thing is knowing that I'm not taking a spot from some young guy out here on this tour," said Lehman, who won this event a quarter century ago. "So the ability to come and play without causing somebody else to not play actually was part of what determined whether I would play or not. Because I'm a past champion, and the same at Memorial, where I can play without causing somebody else to not be able to play, I'm looking forward to playing in both of them."

But I'm thinking that can't be true, can it?  If he decided not to play, wouldn't the next guy on the priority list get the tee time?  Tom has always seemed a good guy and he's really sure of himself, so I'll just have to leave it there with my reservations noted.

Strangely omitted from the article is that Tom is a favorite son of Minnesota, which you might have noticed has been in the news lately.... 

Mike Stachura has an interesting item on the effect of the virus protocols on the equipment reps:

On the range also was different. Each player had a guest badge they could use for a teacher or an equipment rep to be with them on the range. “We were able to get out there and stand with them, properly social distanced, to watch them hit some balls which was

very helpful,” Davidson said. “The new challenge is that we can’t grab the club from the player and make the adjustments or move weight around or change a hosel setting with the wrenches right on the range. We have to advise the players on how to do that, or put the club through the cleaning protocol. That can slow down the process.”

Davidson cited a 3-wood build for Matt Wallace as an example of the new normal. After building the club, Wallace hit it on the range and sent Davidson some Trackman numbers. “We looked at the numbers and discussed them with him via phone and text [explaining] that we needed to take a little bit of loft off the club to bring down the spin,” Davidson said. “So, the club was brought back to the sanitizing station, went through that, then came back on the truck. We bent it to take the loft off, sent it back through the station, and he got it back. Then we watched him hit it and it was good. That was an example where it worked out well, but sometimes, especially if you’re bending clubs, it can take a few tries to get it right.”

A sanitizing station for golf clubs?   It's all a bit amusing, given the CDC's walkback of the concept of transmission via surfaces...  Fact is, we just really don't know much.  But while all understand the concept of better safe than sorry, a vast fortune can be spent (wasted?) on such requirements.  developing, as the kids are wont to say...

Enjoy the weekend and we'll see how this all looks and feels Monday morning.