Weekend Wrap

Lots to discuss, even including a little golf...

Webb In Full - How can you not like the guy?  I forget who said it, but he's been described as the Tour leader in Strokes Gained: Attitude, exactly that which is needed to come back after they banned the method of putting on which your career hinged.

I don't know what he did during that 2 1/2 hour delay, but it certainly worked:

After 11 holes, Simpson was two strokes out of the lead. Over the next seven, he grabbed it.

On 12, his approach dropped to 10 feet. He made the birdie. On 13, his approach dropped to 22 feet. He made the birdie. On 15, a par-5, he was home in two, and he made the birdie. He never lost the lead from there.

He secured it on 16 and 17. On 16, his approach dropped to 14 feet. He made the birdie. That gave him the outright lead. On 17, his tee shot dropped to 17 feet. He made the birdie. That gave him a cushion.

“I think it’s a good thing that guys were making birdies because they kind of forced me to be a little more aggressive and know that pars weren’t going to cut it,” Simpson said. “I was only 2-under through 11 holes today for the round and had to make birdies.”

Guys were certainly making birdies except, yanno, when they were making eagles....

Christopher Powers at Golf Digest has five takeaways on offer, including this new acronym:

Webb Simpson is the BPITWRN

Following his strong first two rounds, I posed this question on Friday evening: Is Webb Simpson the BPITWRN (Best Player In The World Right Now)? Over the last year, one

could argue only Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm have had more impressive records than the former U.S. Open winner. After his performance this week, Simpson’s last 12 months are now absolutely on par with the World No. 1 and No. 2.

What was so incredible about Simpson’s victory on Sunday was that his putter went completely cold early in the day, usually a sign of a fade into T-15 territory for even the best in the world. But a switch flipped at the 12th, where Simpson made his first of five birdies on his final seven holes, four from 10-plus feet. He finished the week second in strokes gained/putting, much of that due to gaining an insane 6.008 strokes on the greens on Friday. But the final stretch Sunday was far more important, because it came in the clutch. Simpson is now a seven-time tour winner, and if he stays on this trajectory, I smell major No. 2 in his near future.

God, no, though doesn't the BPITWRN have to be Daniel Berger?  If you literally mean right NOW.

What Powers elides is that we've seen the last two weeks is play on courses that favor the bunters over the home run hitters.  But it's easy to underrate guys like the Webber, who don't possess the firepower of the Rory's and Brooksies, but that also makes it fun to root for them....

More from Powers:

Abraham Ancer is the new close calls king

Since the 2018 Quicken Loans National, Ancer has finished inside the top five eight

times. On a number of those occasions, he’s either finished runner-up, been within a shot or two to begin the final round, or posted a number and got clipped by a stroke. On Sunday at Harbour Town, Ancer played in the final group and was doing a damn good job of controlling his own destiny, and then Webb went OFF. All these close calls are a sign he’s doing something right, but he seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The dude needs to get a break or two for once and he’ll absolutely get a win. Also, putting better would help (Ancer lost strokes on the greens this week).

So he's the BPNTHWA?  Best player never to have won anything...

I was actually surprised at how far he was hitting the ball....  Good player whose time will come, I still keep wondering why Tiger was such a dick to him at the Prez Cup.

One last bit from here:

Brooks Koepka is definitely back

There are at least two or three “is he back?” stories in golf seemingly every week. After Daniel Berger answered that question with his victory at Colonial, the “is he back” focus

remained on Jordan Spieth and Brooks Koepka. Spieth appeared to be back after shooting a back-nine 29 on Thursday, but then he went back to hitting it all over creation. Koepka’s play on the weekend leads me to believe that he is absolutely fully back. He’s now shot eight consecutive rounds in the 60s, something he last did between the third round of the 2018 WGC-Bridgestone and the second round of the 2018 Northern Trust. In between those two events came his PGA Championship win at Bellerive. So if he’s returning to that level, he’s definitely back.

As with his play last week at Colonial, he certainly looks to be healthy again.  He appears to have benefited from the lockdown  and the knee no longer seems to bother him.  I would expect that he'll be a force as we head towards those majors, though there was that one putt he gagged on just as it seemed he might have an outside chance.  The kind of gaggy stroke these guys can make when they haven't had one that mattered for a while...

As I said Sunday morning to my playing partners, either you shot 63 or you got lapped... This week's Tour Confidential addressed the low scoring:

3. Low scoring was abundant at the RBC, with 40 players finishing at 12-under or better – the number that won last year’s tournament. In just the Tour’s second event back after a three-month hiatus, are you surprised that players have been able to play so well so quickly? 

Berhow: Not really. These guys are that good. Twenty under was T14 on the Korn Ferry Tour this week! 

Zak: Nope! They knew this was coming, and Mother Nature has treated them well. The course setups have been easy. Also, the fields have been deeper than these tournaments have ever seen. It all adds up to low scoring.

Sens: Not at all. This is what they do. Especially on vulnerable courses. No surprise that these guys can go low after a layoff. If you separated Sean Zak from his keyboard for six weeks, you’d expect him to come back firing on all cylinders and churning out his usual poetic prose.

Bamberger: Not at all. This is what they do. I could go on. 

Shipnuck: Hot weather equals soft greens, because a lot of water is required to keep the grass alive. Receptive greens allow Tour players to tear up any course.

Each of these first two venues were unnaturally vulnerable....  there's a reason they don't usually go to Fort Worth or the Low Country in the dog days of summer.

 This as well:

4. Another PGA Tour tournament, another display of power from Bryson DeChambeau. While hitting balls on the range at Harbour Town Golf Links, he was forced to move back, as his drives were going over the netting. Will he single-handedly reintroduce the “roll back the ball” debate?

Berhow: I don’t think so. He’s just one person, and this formula isn’t for everyone. There used to be a debate about golfers bulking up and if that was good for their game, but Bryson has taken it to another level. He has proven (again) there’s no one right way to do things. He’s essentially becoming a World Long Drive competitor with a more complete game. That’s insane. 

Zak: Bryson is going to be used in every distance debate from now until it creates change. He purposefully worked to test the limits of the technology and his body, and it’s leading to success on the cookie-cutter Tour. Who’s to say that Jordan Spieth couldn’t do the same? Or how about when Bryson neuters TPC Harding Park in a good weather week and shoots 20-under in a major? This is all about him, and it’s beautiful to watch.

Sens: Bryson’s Bruce Banner transition has made for a great story and some eye-popping moments. But he’s far from the only guy blasting the ball to oblivion. I don’t see a big rollback push coming in his wake. Depending on how his health holds up, he might rekindle the debate over the physical costs of the modern bomber game. But that’s to be seen. 

Shipnuck: Bryson has ended the debate as to whether or not Tour players should hit driver on every hole. They should. If more players adopt his go-for-broke style, courses will play even shorter than they already are, which is too short to begin with. We’ve known for a decade-plus that the distance gains on Tour have rendered pretty much every course on the planet obsolete and yet nothing has been done. I’m not sure Bryson alone can change that, but if he is in the vanguard or a further revolution, something’s gotta give.

But perhaps there's more to come, as the beast himself has this comment earlier in the week:

Bryson DeChambeau constrained by Harbour Town: 'I couldn't unleash Kraken'

First Cam Champ comes out and blows it twenty yards past the other guys.  Then Bryson beefs up and hits it twenty yards past Cam....  Then the USGA/R&A tell us there's been another 1.6 yards of  distance increase on average, so it's all a little bewildering.  I don't know where this goes, but I wouldn't put money on the backbone of our governing organizations....

Golf In The Time of Corona - You've heard the news about Nick Watney's positive test by now, and the freak-out is well under way in certain quarters.  Those quarters very much include Shack's blog, so let's have at it:

Before arriving to the course for his second round, he reported symptoms consistent with 

COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. Watney was tested again, and the result came back positive. 

Si Woo Kim saw him in passing on the range, and Rory McIlroy said he chatted with Watney on the putting green. McIlroy said they were at a distance, and that Watney sent him a text about the positive result after McIlroy finished his round. 

''He was just saying, `Look, I hope I didn't get too close to you.' He feels badly that he was here today at the golf course,'' McIlroy said. ''I said to him, `If I was in your position, I probably would have been here, too. At this point, you just have to concentrate on getting better and getting healthy.'''

First freak out: Watney also saw Koepka in the parking lot so could have infected two of the top-ranked players in the world.  OK. world, take a few deep breaths.... Now, don't you feel better?

First, a young, healthy person (one who probably does not have a Vitamin D deficiency based upon his profession), has the virus.  He's not gonna die, folks, he's just going to be inconvenienced a bit.

More importantly, those interactions with Rory and Brooks?  They were outdoors, folks, and one thing we know pretty well is you're not gonna get infected outdoors.  I'm having trouble finding it right now, but every person he crossed paths with has been tested and proven negative for the virus, an entirely predictable result.

Even prior to the disclosure of Watney's test, there had been a little bit of a freak out over the relaxed vibe at Hilton Head:

Justin Thomas was probably the most blunt about the scene, as Joel Beall reports for GolfDigest.com. 

"Yeah, obviously, I was bummed [about Watney]. I don't want to—it's a shame because ... we have done such a great job these first two weeks,” Thomas said. “I mean, no offense to Hilton Head, but they're seeming to not take it very seriously. It's an absolute zoo around here. There's people everywhere. The beaches are absolutely packed. Every restaurant, from what I've seen when I've been driving by, is absolutely crowded. So I would say it's no coincidence that there's got to be a lot of stuff going on around here.

It's maddening that people won't limit themselves to activities approved by our betters as safe...Yanno, things like rioting and looting... How can we be this deep into the pandemic and still be worrying about folks on beaches?  Perhaps because our media is working overtime to keep us at peak freak out?  And you know they intend to keep up until...oh, I don't know, say November 3rd?

 Here's an excerpt from Geoff's post-tourney screed:

Everybody is watching. 

That was Commissioner Jay Monahan’s statement at the PGA Tour’s first event back. And through two events—at least to anyone watching at home—the PGA Tour looks like 

a collection of very fine golfers, caddies, volunteers and officials who see themselves as above taking measures to ensure the safety of themselves or others. 

Just consider the other sports on television this weekend while the storm-delayed RBC Heritage played out (ultimately won by Webb Simpson in the stunning Hilton Head twilight).

The Professional Bull Riders and everyone around them wore masks on CBS.

The pit crews and drivers at NASCAR have been showing on Fox broadcasts how seriously they are taking the privilege of competing in a time other sports are stalled (granted, they do have other disgusting and potentially fatal issues to deal with).

How about the USA Cornhole Club Championship on NBC Sports? Yep, distancing and masks.

Horse racing across the world has performed incredibly, with everything from Royal Ascot to Los Alamitos showing that life can temporarily go on in with masks.

And I’m sure if they still televised dog races, we’d see they’d be willing to follow protocols, too.

Then there is the pitiful performance of the PGA Tour, which, unlike the above mentioned sports, had a contestant test positive for the virus.

Did this result in an uptick in more careful behavior in front of CBS cameras this weekend? Or an appearance by a leading Tour official to address the situation?

Of course not.

If you've seen the ratings, you'll that "Everybody is watching" is quite the howler....And that Cornhole reference is a new contender for worst appeal to authority ever...

But this is all about masks?  Outdoors?  In the heat?  I'm old enough to remember when the authorities told us that masks aren't actually helpful.  Heck, that's nothing, I'm old enough to remember when the sainted Dr. Fauci assured us we had nothing to worry about from the virus...

But Geoff has this absolute moral authority shtick going in which anyone not in a mask is a merchant of death....  As if we haven't seen the over-hyping of the virus, the massive misdirections (surfaces anyone?) and the wanton failures of those in authority.  

There are some legitimate grounds for concerns about the Tour's protocols, though apparently a significant one is being addressed this coming week:

The PGA Tour is scheduled to play next week in Cromwell, Connecticut, where the Travelers Championship is testing everyone - including volunteers and media - who will be on property. 

Tournament organizers made that decision. The PGA Tour has tried to create a bubble of its key people at tournaments, designating player hotels as an option and urging everyone in the bubble to avoid outside contact. Some players have been renting houses. There is no regulation if they choose to eat out. 

Hilton Head has been particularly busy this week, with local restaurants packed with people who typically come to this quiet island on the Atlantic coast for vacation.

''South Carolina's open. If you go anywhere to a restaurant, there's a lot of people there right now,'' Spieth said. ''So I guess that's probably best case is that he got it on his own outside'' the bubble.

Testing everyone seems both wise and doable.  But there's an air of unreality about just how tight a bubble could ever be.  This ties in directly with my views on the unnecessarily punitive stay-at-home orders from so many governors, often in states relatively mildly hit by the virus.  Humans have an innate need to be active and socialize, and if your health care policy doesn't accommodate that, it's actually bad policy.  

My immediate thought when hearing of Watrney's positive test was that it's likely good news for the Tour.  We as a society seem unable to deal with the slightest risks, but a young, healthy person contracting Covid is barely a minor inconvenience.  Oh, and maybe this will make you feel better for Nick:

Wacker notes Watney must quarantine for 10 days in Hilton Head or drive home immediately to Austin, Texas. He will receive $100,000 for his troubles and we hope, nothing more than some mild symptoms.

I get the sense that Geoff actually thinks the virus is a death sentence....  Where could he have possibly gotten that idea?

The Skinny on Bryson -  Shane Ryan on the Kraken:

Like most men with oversized chests and arms, the New Bryson DeChambeau looks

perpetually uncomfortable, as though his body retains a memory of the range and fluidity it once knew, and yet can't adjust to life inside the prison bars of bulging muscle.

There is not much grace to his game now, and he's never more rigid and confined than when he's on the green. Contrary to perception—or at least my perception of the broader perception—he's been an above-average putter in the 2020 season and has performed decently at the RBC Heritage this week. But the stroke is ugly, stiff and regimented, and though he must have a great deal of "feel" and "touch" to the shot, those elements are invisible to the naked eye. All you can see is a slab of a man attempting to turn into a plank, to become a thick fulcrum with no deviations ... robotic, repeatable.

So true.  I've struggled at times to put my own reactions into words, as I simply don't enjoy watching him play the game.  

The drive is different. The drive is a thunder-slap, and the shot on which all those cumbersome muscles come unleashed and you can see the strongman give way to the athlete. It only lasts a millisecond, but there's a whip-like quality then, and the remnants of his thinner, more graceful self find equilibrium with all that new strength. The synthesis is almost frightening. I watched in awe the first time I saw him pull out the driver on the par-five second hole at Harbour Town Golf Links on Saturday, and I stayed in awe even though he blasted it out-of-bounds at one of the easiest holes he'd play all day.

This is why I came to Hilton Head, if I'm being honest with myself. To see DeChambeau hit that drive, and to reckon with the question of whether he's some kind of lunatic Don Quixote, gulping down snake oil, or whether he's about to transform the sport.

God, I hope not....  As I've mentioned frequently, I'm a skeptic on muscle mass and golf, still pining for that body Tiger came out with in 1996.  But that seems a minority opinion, though I would encourage others to at least give it some time to see if Bryson stays healthy.

We have a Shipnuck mailbag that we'll get to, but might as well segue to this Q&A that's on point:

Are you enjoying watching the 240 lb. incredible bulk that is Bryson DeChambeau averaging 330 yards off the tee? I’m not. Give me 310 yards from the 160 lb. weakling that is Justin Thomas any day of the week! -@TheGolfDivoTee

Watching Bryson right now is akin to going to the circus: it’s a thrilling, death-defying show that overwhelms the senses. I deeply admire DeChambeau’s obsession with

improvement and the dedication it has taken to remake his body and swing. He has taken bomb-and-gouge to its illogical extreme and is deservedly reaping the benefits. Alas, if you watch a bearded lady swallowing swords four days in a row, week after week, at some point the thrill is gone. I was a little melancholy hearing the stat that the average yardage Bryson had left on Colonial’s par-4s was 110 yards. A proud course was reduced to pitch-and-putt, and the artistry of the sport snuffed out entirely. Hilton Head is another supposed shotmaker’s course, but if Bryson flies every dogleg it will play exactly the same as Colonial, which is to say, boring.

The saving grace was the Webb won...at least this week (to be fair to Alan, his mailbag was posted on Friday). 

Memorial Day - Interesting the way things are playing out, but The Memorial will be the only event with spectators at least until August.  Dave Shedloski has an interesting feature on how they plan to manage their logistics, which includes this howler:

Hollis Cavner, 3M Open Executive Tournament Director, sought permission to allow about 5,500 fans onto the grounds of the course in the suburb of Blaine, Minn. Most of those were to be via free admission to military families and veterans. “On a property that’s 250 acres, with 5,500 people, you’re talking about the equivalence of three people in a Walmart Supercenter,” Cavner said.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz wouldn’t go for it, largely, Cavner said, because he fears an increase in COVID-19 infections after riots and protests broke out in the wake of a killing of George Floyd. “He said that they feel like there is going to be a spike in July with all that is going on here,” Cavner said. “That came up in our conversations.”

You're worried about that NOW?  

I'll let you explore the piece, but let me just clarify one point.  I don't worry much about the players and caddies, because they're mostly young and healthy (though perhaps Fluff might take some time off).  But golf spectators?  Far more troubling, as it's an older demo, where we can't be as sanguine about infections.  And really, that was Jay Monahan's disgrace at The Players, as he seemed quite clearly to not care much about the customers.

Alan. Asked - The plan is to riff off Alan's hard work, and to then let you get on with your days:

Why are the young guns so bad at closing? JT is 1 for 3 this year and even the win was in spite of awful shots at 18 at Kapalua, repeatedly. Bryson now has two 71st hole bogeys with the lead. Throw in Xander’s lip out, Jordan and Rory playing awful in contention on Sunday, etc. etc. -@brianros1 

Winning a third of the time when you have a chance is, historically, pretty darn good. I

think in this era of social media and wall-to-wall television coverage, every blown opportunity is examined and discussed in forensic detail, whereas in the old days guys could sputter on Sunday and it would go largely undetected. All that said, I agree it’s frustrating when so many would-be stars repeatedly fail to capitalize on their opportunities. Maybe they’ve been made soft by the money, or they’re scarred by the attention given to their crack-ups, or they’re over-coached and thus unable to fix the flaws once they’re alone between the ropes. Every player is different so it’s tough to generalize, but clearly the ability to close is one of the most precious skills in the sport.

Or golf is hard?  Do we think Xander is proud to be the accompanying photo for this lead question?

But was Jordan bad at closing (yanno, before he lost the plot)?  How about Brooks?  really, it's been ever thus...  Some weeks you hold it together, but the next week you might spit the bit.

Did I hear someone mention the former Golden Child?

Will Jordan Spieth ever return to form as one of the world’s best golfers? He seems so mentally broken when he gets into contention on the weekends. He makes mistakes that quite frankly you don’t see pros make i.e. chunk wedges, short putts missed, etc. -@s_ciech 

Well, plenty of other pros missed important putts on Sunday, and from Hunter Mahan to Constantino Rocca, chunked wedges happen from time to time. But your thesis is correct that Spieth has looked alarmingly fragile over the last two years and he did make five brutal bogeys on Sunday to torpedo his chances at victory. Somehow, the near-miss at Colonial still represents progress. He played great golf for three days and on Sunday still hung in there despite the mistakes. I get asked about Spieth a lot in this space and my answer remains the same: he’s too tough, too smart and too talented not to figure this out. Of course, he had one of the greatest seasons in golf history at age 22; it’s likely he’ll never reach those heights again. Still, I expect him to claw his way back to the front ranks of the game.

Care to make it interesting, Alan?  A week after Colonial, progress seems as fleeting as ever, so consider that Colonial might be the outlier.

Collin Morikawa 10 career wins: over or under? -@mcdonough 

Under. Ten is a huge career. I love the kid’s swing as much as everyone else but blowing that short putt in the playoff was concerning. It’s not even the miss itself; that happens. But Morikawa stood over that ball forever, frozen. That hints at something deeper, especially for a guy who ranks near the bottom of the Tour’s putting stats. I hope he shakes this off and proves me wrong but the scar tissue from that miss will run deep.

I'm not as worried about the one scar, it's just awfully hard to win out there.

What is the best/worst things about golf with no fans? Have you ever seen so many missed short putts on tour? -@Golfingbrock 

I loved the look of the course: so pure and uncluttered without the grandstands and other detritus. The absence of obnoxious jabronis shouting nonsense was blissful. I did miss the ambient cheers on Sunday but only a little; the emotion from the players told us pretty much everything we needed to know about the magnitude of the moment. As for the putting, some of that was competitive rust, a lot of it is Colonial’s insistence on having bent grass greens despite the scorching temperatures of Texas summers. By Sunday afternoon the putting surfaces looked grey. They were so burnt-out and crusty I’m sure it affected the players, who were already trying to finish off one of the most unusual and stressful weeks of their careers.

Best thing:  No TIOs, therefore no grandstanding.  Play it as it lies, boys!

Where does Colonial rank among the regular stops on the PGA Tour? -@SteveThomsonMN 

Near the top. The ambience (in normal times) is great, the course a delightful throwback, and it enjoys a long, rich history. What’s not to like?

Agreed, though it's not an especially competitive category.  Once the Tour leaves the West coast, there aren't too many venues to get excited about.

Comment on the contrast in the reaction/coverage of Vijay getting pilloried for entering a KFT event only to back out, while Luke List was praised for dropping down? Not critiquing/defending either, just curious about the inconsistent responses to the same thing. – @tahewett 

The fundamental difference is that Vijay is a Hall of Famer with trillions in the bank who has largely forsaken the PGA Tour in favor of the old-guy circuit. A KFT tournament for him would be somewhere between a lark and spring training. List is a youngish guy trying to advance his career, which is theoretically the whole reason the KFT exists. He’s a full-time Tour player who would have loved to be at Colonial but didn’t qualify so it made sense for him to grind in AAA.

 Vijay is 57.  Luke List is 35.  What are they doing in the same discussion?

If you could only pick one player to win any week at any course for the next 10 years is that player JT? He has the most complete game IMO. #askalan -@BAIllini98 

I think JT is the right answer, though Rahm deserves mention. So does Koepka, but given the serious injuries he has sustained over the last couple of years you have to wonder if his body will hold up for the next decade.

Can I get back to you in, say, ten years?

Tough putts to end Morikawa and Schauffele’s runs. What are the worst lip-outs of all time? Dough Sanders? (Open) Scott Hoch? (Masters) Brandt Snedeker? (BMW) IK Kim? Daley? (Q-School?) -@frazerrice

Excellent list. Don’t forget Phil’s spinout to cost him a 59 in Phoenix. Or Norman’s to lose in sudden death at the 1993 PGA Championship. Or Nick Price’s on the final hole of the third round of the ’86 Masters, costing him a 62. Or Tiger at the ’07 PGA, which also cost him a 62. Golf, man.

Several of those weren't lip outs, notably Sanders and Joe Daley at Q-School.  Sanders' putt didn't sniff the hole, and Daley's hit the cup lined and popped straight back at him.  I'd maybe add Jack at Baltusrol '80 to shoot 62?

Who will have the better career, the man who missed the first 21 cuts of his pro career (Rose) or the man who just made the first 21 cuts of his pro career (Morikawa)? #AskAlan -@pkeen52 

Rose is a slightly frustrating case, because he’s been close to transcendence but not quite able to get there. Still, a U.S. Open win (at Merion!), the Gold Medal, a stint at No. 1, 10 PGA Tour wins and a bevy of other victories around the world, an Order of Merit title, a FedEx Cup…when you lay it all out like that, I think he’s done enough to make it to the Hall of Fame. Any 23 year-old on the planet would be crazy not to sign up for that resume.

Just a cute question for sure, though Morikawa would take Rose's career in a heartbeat.

Is Sheep Ranch the best course at Bandon now??? -@GolferMurray 

I don’t like to use “best” in this context. Sheep Ranch doesn’t have terrain nearly as interesting as Bandon Dunes or Trails. It is not the same kind of test as Pacific. But Sheep Ranch is outrageously fun and utterly charming. If I had 10 rounds up there I’d go 3 at Bandon, 3 at Trails, 2 at Sheep, 1 at Pacific and 1 at Old Mac. The beauty of Bandon is that everyone will split those 10 rounds up a different way, and we’re all right.

I just have to get my butt back there to settle the debate.

Enjoy your day and we'll visit again soon.