Monday, September 28, 2020

Weekend Wrap

I'm pleased to report that I had a good weekend.  Was there anything more that I should be covering?  Maybe this?

Here’s everything Hudson Swafford learned when he won, then lost, then won back the Corales Puntacana title

OK, I did tune in for a few minutes of it, when Swafford was throwing up on his shoes.  Glad to see he was able to pull it together, but that's all I have to say on that subject.

The Week That Wasn't - Irony alert. we'll spend far more time covering the event that was supposed to but didn't happen, the Ryder Cup.  From the day the Wuhan Flu hit, your humble blogger assumed that this event would be the first to go.  After all, in a year of dramatically reduced playing opportunities, what kind of self-interested organization would make a priority of an exhibition for twenty-four players?  Unfortunately that question was answered...

Geoff had these comments in his post:

It would have been a somber, fan or partially fan-free Ryder Cup last weekend played under ideal weather conditions. But with Wisconsin reporting 2000 new cases four days in a row and a huge positivity rate as well, combined with the lack of fan access, and it looks like the 2020-In-2021 Ryder Cup looks like a wise postponement to 2021.

While I still think toning down the fan element and other theatrics would have been a good thing, a date the week after the rescheduled U.S. Open was, in hindsight, less than ideal and might have led to a severely diminished event.

 

In a perfect imitation of the current political zeitgeist, I completely agree with Geoff about the benefit of toning down the fans at this event, as long as that can be accomplished at an away game.  Even that's not true, as I worry terribly about the fans at the Bethpage Ryder Cup in 2025.

Our Shack continues to hyperventilate over new cases, a reminder that, after the handful of case at Hartford, he called for the Tour to shut down again.  But the weather is a big factor when they go North in late September, because they have to get the guys around the course twice on Friday-Saturday.  It can be awfully cold and dark for the morning sessions.  You might not instinctively know who that favors, though if you're hoping that Tiger will be on the team you'll likely be limiting Captain Stricker's options.

This week's Tour Confidential panel devoted their exit question to this non-event as well:

6. Sunday would have been the final day of the Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits, which was moved to a year from now due to the coronavirus pandemic. What did you most miss?

Shipnuck: Being right. I have no doubt the young, talented Americans who have been dominating the golf world were going to win to touch off a decade of dominance. Now, who knows how much momentum will be lost over the next year. Alas, Europe even wins the pandemics.

OK, that last bit is good, and we all like funny...  The history here is that Alan had predicted an era of U.S. dominance, which only served to make him the toast of the Euro's victory celebration in 2018.  Not that there was any reason to disagree with his demographic-driven analysis, it's just that our guys have a way of turning into...what was Dottie's felicitous phrase, chokin' freakin' dogs.

There's little doubt that the U.S. team looked far stronger coming into 2020, as after Rahm and Rory the talent falls off quite dramatically (and it's not like Rory has even been that good in this event).  But thier position as overwhelming favorites, added to the need to expunge the bitter taste of 2018, seems unlikely to make our guys play looser.  

Dethier: The crowds. The frenzied Midwestern crowds waking up on a crisp Wisconsin morning, getting out in some hideous star-spangled garb and rooting on their beloved Yanks in a too-close Ryder Cup on a super-fun golf course. Oh, and figuring out if Tiger Woods should be on the team — that would have been a blast of a debate too, no doubt.

Frenzied Midwesterners?   Maybe, but that last bit I find depressing.  Because he shouldn't be on the team, but probably would have been because...well, task force.

Bamberger: The parades of the WAGs. The parade of self-importance, pre, post and during.

I knew there would be a WAG reference, I just didn't see it coming from Mike.

Piastowski: The fans. They made the right call to not go on without them. It’s the event that needs a crowd the most. The one event where you can cheer for your team – and get after the other one.

You can't postpone or defer the 2020 U.S. Open or Masters, because they obviously become the 2021 installment.  The distressing part is how long it took the powers that be to come to the rather obvious conclusion that it's better to simply defer this one.

Sean Zak takes it upon himself to help build anticipation, offering eight reasons that Whistling Straits will prove to be a great Ryder Cup venue.  I'm stubbornly unconvinced, but let's see what he's got, starting with the course set-up:

1. Captain Stricker has already altered the golf course

As many Ryder Cup captains have done and love to do, Steve Stricker has already changed some aspects of Whistling Straits to favor the Americans for next year’s event. Below are the changes as of August:

1. Widened fairway on the par-4 9th
2. Widened fairway on the par-5 11th
3. Rough added around the greens of Nos. 2, 5 and 9, instead of tightly mown areas

Stricker’s goal is obvious with a few of these moves. Open it up a bit more, and let the American brand of ‘Driver Everywhere’ have a little more room. Are these significant changes? Not totally, but it’s definitely a sign of Team USA’s focus when it comes to course setup. After 2018, in which the European team narrowed the fairways at Le Golf National and forced the Americans into playing a throttled-down, precision-focused game, the 2021 setup will likely mirror some aspects of 2016 at Hazeltine. Big ballparks with very graduated rough let the big dogs eat. And we have already seen what that meant at Winged Foot.

Hmmmm... really, Sean?  Because I was reliably informed by a Mr. DeChambeau that, counter-intuitively, narrow fairways actually help the longer hitters.  And since Mr. deChambeau is likely to be an important cog on our team, why are you actively conspiring against him?

3. We’ve never seen Whistling in September

Whistling Straits has been generally adored as a major venue in the three times it has hosted the PGA Championship. But each of those instances took place in early to mid-August. By late September, Wisconsin is a much different place, and Whistling is a different course.

The wind will likely be up and the temperatures will likely be down. BOTH of those are good for Ryder Cups. There’s something special about players rocking beanies on the first tee (which we saw at Hazeltine in 2016), and there’s something really special and proper about Rory McIlroy in a sweater vest bowing to American fans.

Adored?   That DJ fellow seems likely to another important cog on the American team, and I'd guess that his feelings about the place are, shall we say, more complicated?

Strangely, Sean adds this to the above:

Temperature highs in the last week of September can be anywhere from the mid-50s to the mid-70s. The ball could soar, or the course could play brutally long in the cold. Could it snow? Yes, it could! Winds whipping off Lake Michigan will make those lakeside par 3s (Nos. 3, 7, 12, 17) some of the best golf theater we’ll get all year long.

Easy there, Sean, you'll give them the idea to take this event to Dove Mountain...

I have terribly mixed feelings about this venue, but I also have little sense of how it will work in match play.  Then again, we have a year to ponder that.

One last RC bit, this in which Ryan Herrington recounts the fourteen seminal moments in the event's history.  Some of it might surprise, but it also includes another fun typo you'll enjoy.  I think most Americans instinctively assume American dominance until Seve burst on the scene, though the reality is slightly more complicated:

1935: U.S. begins its dominance

Lost to history is the fact that the early years of the Ryder Cup were highly competitive, the two sides splitting the first four matches, each winning at home. But that would change starting in 1935 at New Jersey’s Ridgewood Country Club. British captain Charles Whitcombe, playing with his brothers Ernest and Reg, were no match for a squad consisting of Hagen, Gene Sarazen, Horton Smith and Craig Wood, among others. The Americans won 9-3 and would begin a run of seven straight matches in which they would get the best of the Brits.


Three brothers Reg, Ernest and Charles Whitcombe all competed on the 1935 Ryder Cup team for the U.S.

Interesting history of the event's resurrection after WWII, the addition of continental Europe and the emerging European juggernaut.  But do you remember how, in the preview of Winged Foot, we had fun with Geoff's description (no doubt auto-correct gone awry) of that house behind the 3rd green as "goyish"?  See if you enjoy this one as much:

1991: The War by the Shore

Revisionist history likes to say that the Ryder Cup had been the gentile affair of “The Concession” up until the 1980s, despite the numerous instances of contentiousness that dotted the match throughout its history. But the 1991 edition at Kiawah Island indeed had a different feel, egged on by the fact that the Americans were in the midst of their longest stretch without winning the Cup. A raucous and partisan crowd amped up the atmosphere at the Ocean Course. Combined with just how close the competition was, it created the most highly charged atmosphere in memory. Famously, it all came down to the final match between Hale Irwin and Bernhard Langer, then down to a Langer putt on the 18th hole. Make and the Euros win again. Miss, and the Americans prevail. You didn’t need to watch to know what happened. The sound of the roof coming off the Ocean Course gave it away.

The problem with gentile affairs is that the food usually sucks...  Of course, there's always plenty of booze to dull the taste buds.

 

Don't Know Much About History - Can anyone tell me the origins of golf?  Anyone?  Bueller?

It's a trick question, the answer to which happens to be "no":

Golf Questions You’re Afraid to Ask: Who invented golf, and how did it become so popular?

According to Lagle, there is still quite a bit of debate among historians as to the origins of golf, but there is no doubt that the Scots cultivated the foundations of the modern game.

“Early ball and stick games can be traced back to the 13th century,” Lagle told me. “Not only were these games being played in Europe, but they were also being played in Asia and parts of Africa as well. There were even ball and stick games that can be traced back to China in the 11th century, which is pretty incredible.” But Scotland kept the precursor to the modern game alive, and they were really the ones that ushered it into this present form, which emerged in the 15th century.”

Golfers in St. Andrews in 1798.

 One more excerpt:

So, when did golf become really big?

It wasn’t until the 19th century that golf began to expand in popularity. Its growth, in large part, was due to the Industrial Revolution; the creation and development of the Scottish railway system allowed for English tourists to take the train to Scotland for golf trips and holidays.

Historians believe that early versions of golf — such as the aforementioned ball and stick games and early Dutch precursors to golf— arose in America between 1650 and 1660 in upstate New York. These early versions of the game began to rise in prevalence and popularity closer to the 1770’s in British and Scottish communities in New York City, the Carolinas, in towns such as Pinehurst, and Charleston, and Savannah, Georgia, all of which had golf clubs and active golfing communities. Documents from ship manifests at the time include quantities of golf clubs and balls being shipped from Europe to the United States.

This popularity of the game died down around the War of 1812, but made its final, major resurgence in America in the 1880’s. By December of 1894, the United States Golf Association was established, and by 1895, the U.S. Open, the U.S. Amateur, and the U.S. Women’s Amateur golf tournaments were first contested.

That last paragraph should include the name Charles Blair Macdonald, though we'll leave that for another time.

Quick Hits - I'm eyeing the exit, but a couple of fun items on the way.  First, this video of a ball spinning on a green from Titelist is oddly capticating:

Really, I can stop watching it any time I want to....

The Irish Open was played last week, though at an inland course that wasn't terribly interesting.  Unlike events in the U.S., there seems to have been no impediment to the presence of fans:


 Of course, Geoff posted it under this header:

Mooooo! Irish Open's Only Spectators Resist Social Distancing, Masks

I'm pretty sure he's making a little joke, though his prior hysteria over positive tests leaves me uncertain.

Lastly, since golf is having its moment in the sun, it's the perfect time for a it to show up on Jeopardy, this being the Final Jeopardy clue:

The question? On Forbes’ 2020 list of the 100 highest-paid athletes, at age 50 this active individual sportsman is the oldest.

 Already we have an issue, because that's the answer, the contestants give the question (hence my use of the carefully chosen "clue").  The individual involved took it reasonably well:

One contestant did get his first name, and in the golf world all one needs is that first name...  But these guys are sticklers for details.

It's unrelated to golf, but earlier in the show there was what to me (Employee No. 2, as well) the single funniest answer (OK, question) I have ever heard.  Of course, your mileage may vary.

We're in the Jeopardy round, and the category is "Guys Named Doug".  The clue is as follows:

Douglass Ginsburg's nomination for this post went up in smoke in 1987 when reports of drug use came out.

The response that had us rolling on the floor?  What is the Pope.

This is funny on any number of levels, obviously beginning with the obvious ethnic origins of the name Ginsburg.  I found this message board that had all sorts of fun with it, including a couple of slants that I didn't see, fort instance this:

And God forbid you try to fill a vacancy in an election year...

And while I was laughing at the confluence of the obviously-Jewish name and the equally-obvious job to which Jews need not apply, this guy has more game than your humble blogger:

Is it true that we've never had a Pope Doug?  

I'll see you good folks tomorrow.

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