A Brief Friday Frisson

 I shan't be with you for long, as we'll be Playing for P.I.N.K. this morning...  Just a couple of things that won't age well over the weekend.

Can't Hazard a Guess - As to what he thought he was doing, that is...  The U.S. Amateur at Bandon Dunes continues to deliver the goods, but one match came to this stunning denouement:

BANDON, Ore. – Segundo Oliva Pinto’s spirited run in his first U.S. Amateur came to a heartbreaking end in a greenside bunker late Thursday afternoon at Bandon Dunes.

Tied with Georgia Tech’s Tyler Strafaci in their Round of 16 match, Oliva Pinto was preparing to hit his fourth shot from the front greenside bunker at the par-5 finishing hole when TV cameras showed Oliva Pinto’s caddie, a local looper named Brant Brewer, bend down and brush the sand.

Strafaci’s caddie, dad Frank Jr., witnessed Brewer and called for a rules official. After a lengthy discussion, Brewer was determined to have touched the sand, a violation of Rule 12.2b, which states a player or caddie must not “deliberately touch sand in the bunker with a hand, club, rake or other object to test the condition of the sand to learn information for the next stroke.”

 Anyone playing this game for more than an hour-and-a-half knows not to do that, and yet here we are...

And here's today's Chico Marx moment:

“I didn’t touch the sand,” Brewer could be heard saying as he discussed what had happened with the official. He reaffirmed his comments as he walked toward the clubhouse.

As in, "Who ya gonna believe, me or your lyin' eyes?   Because that Golf Channel video clearly shows him, yanno, touching the sand.  Perhaps the better follow-up would be along the lines of, if you didn't touch the sand, what the heck were you doing?  

It's just a shame, because it was a great match that at that moment hung in the balance:

Strafaci, 22, was emotional in a TV interview in the aftermath, and after he returned to the clubhouse, he said, “I just put myself in his shoes for a moment. I couldn’t imagine that happening. We both played great. For 18 holes it was a phenomenal match. We played really well in those conditions. For it to come down to that sucks. He’s a great kid, and I don’t think he had any intent at all about it. I don’t think he knew about it.”

You don't think he told his caddie to uselessly check the sand on national TV to see if anyone noticed?  Me neither...  Not so great for the winner either, a Bob Goalby moment:

Oliva Pinto, a 20-year-old from Argentina who is a rising junior at UNC Wilmington, walked slowly to the clubhouse in stunned disbelief as onlookers offered their condolences.

“I didn’t see anything,” Oliva Pinto said, standing in front of the clubhouse. “I know as a player I’m responsible for my caddie, but I truly didn’t know anything about it until the referee came over. It’s just a bummer.

“[Strafaci] is a really good player and a good guy as well. I bet that’s not the way he wanted to win the match, and that’s definitely not the way I wanted to lose it.”

One last bit:

Oliva Pinto added that his caddie offered no explanation.

 “He didn’t say anything,” Oliva Pinto said. “At this point, it doesn’t really matter. What happened, happened. He can say anything, but it won’t change what happened.”

On the one hand, what could he say?  On the other, you better say something, bub?

Think anyone will be requesting Mr. Brewer by name?  How about that awkward first tee moment, when the newly-arrived resort guests asks, "Don't I know you from somewhere?"

The best known player in the field, at least to this observer, is Mid-Am Stewart Hagestad, who has seemingly put his future on hold to pursue this dream:

BANDON, Ore.—Stewart Hagestad pushed his cell phone across the conference table in the

Bandon Dunes Golf Course clubhouse. On his screen was the text he’d received at 5 a.m. on Thursday, a couple of hours before his Round of 32 match in the U.S. Amateur Championship.

“Unbeliveable,” Hagestad said with quiet exasperation. “You’ve got to be kidding, right?”

The message was from an administrator in the MBA program at the University of Southern California. It basically contained an ultimatum: Hagestad needed to be on Zoom calls on Thursday and Friday to continue his orientation for the program. If he missed them, he’d be eliminated as a candidate. In a pre-emptive bid, he had composed a thoughtful email explaining his situation—that he’d reached match play in the U.S. Am and could he please postpone the calls? The answer: a flat “no.”

“We talk about the discussions I have with the kids out here,” Hagestad said. “That’s a real-life decision off the golf course that you have to deal with. You wake up for a 36-hole day with that on your mind.”

Your humble blogger can relate.  In October 1977 I asked an accounting professor to reschedule an exam so that I could attend Game Six of the World Series, a request that was denied.  For those keeping a scorecard, that was the Reggie three-homer game.

I've really been enjoying the coverage, and strongly encourage y'all to tune in.

About Last Night -  Saturday night, that is...  Brooksie explains to Eamon Lynch:

Lynch: Did the comments backfire on you? Did you put too much pressure on yourself to back it up on Sunday?

Koepka: Obviously, a lot came from it. I don’t mind the pressure of that stuff. I put more pressure on myself than anything external. At the same time, I didn’t back it up. That’s my own problem. Part of being someone who talks openly and truthfully is that sometimes I come off cocky or arrogant, and it can backfire if you’re not going to play good. That’s exactly what happened.

Lynch: Were you shocked at how poorly you played?

Koepka: Yeah. I got stunned at the bogey at 2 and other ones at 7, 8 and 9. By that point, I was already out of it. I was just trying to cheer Paul [Casey] on because he had a chance to win and my shot was long gone.

I wasn't.  Shocked, that is...My Sunday morning prediction was Not DJ and not Brooks... I just didn't think he was playing all that well.  Hey, I can't get everything wrong even if I try to...

I tend to agree with Brooks that the reaction to his comments has been a bit over the top, probably due to our attaching more significance to his relationship with DJ than he himself does.  As per this:

Lynch: Have you communicated with DJ about it since Saturday night?

Koepka: No, I haven’t spoken to any players who played in that field since then about any of my comments.

Lynch: Do you plan to reach out to DJ specifically?

Koepka: That’s not something I’m planning on doing.

Maybe Jenna should reach out to Paulina?  Actually, to the extent that he's regretful, it seems more about the other guys and fellow Bash Bros. DJ...

Dream, Postponed -  Don't be put off by this, folks:

Here’s why you may need to wait until 2022 to take your dream golf trip overseas

The coronavirus pandemic has completely upended the travel industry over the past few months, and golf tourism has not been immune to its effects. But as this summer begins to wane into fall,

many travelers are ready to take the plunge on booking a dream itinerary overseas for next summer. There’s only one problem: the most popular courses in Scotland and Ireland (like the Old Course at St. Andrews, Muirfied, Royal County Down and Royal Portrush) are already booked for 2021.

How can this be? Declan O’Brien, the owner and CEO of Destinations Golf & Leisure who specializes in creating international golf itineraries, says that because of the deluge of cancelations this year, there is little to no chance of grabbing a tee time at premium courses in the same area during the same week until 2022.

“Probably close to 100 percent of the groups that are booked for 2020 have been rolled over to 2021,” O’Brien said in a phone interview. “And in order to do that, that means that the inventory for 2021 has been taken up by the rollover from 2020. They had to honor the fold-over from this year to next year, so they had to be so careful taking new bookings because they had to have the availability for the ones this year that couldn’t go.

This is mostly good news for the GB&I clubs, for the simple expedient of not having to return the cash.  But it's a huge hole in their budgets, so I'm guessing the clubs will be forced to allocate more times for visitor play, assuming demand exists...

So, stay home?  No, sir, they need you and there are pleanty of places to play:

“If you’re going to make any new bookings for 2021,”O’Brien continued, “You’re going to find, particularly at the premier courses, that they’re full or it’s very, very slim pickings. From April to October of 2021, the big ones are, for all intents and purposes, gone.”

So what’s a traveling golfer to do if he or she isn’t willing to wait until 2022? According to O’Brien, venturing off the crowded beaten path of top-tier courses in a given area will be key.

“Around St. Andrews, some of the other courses like the New and the Jubilee and the Castle would be available as long as you’re flexible in putting together a week of golf,” O’Brien said. “And you’ll probably get some tee times at Carnoustie and Kingsbarns, again, if flexible. And then you have the older, lesser-known courses like Lundin Links and Crail and Elie. You’d have availability there.”

 Who wants to break it to the folks at Carnoustie that they're not a "big one?"

But Crail, baby!  Mention our name...

I warned you that the frisson would be brief...Have a great weekend and I'll see you on Monday.