THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — Patrick Cantlay has never seemed particularly fond of the spotlight. He’s quiet, goes about his business and lets his game speak for itself.It should come as no surprise, then, that while two of the world’s top three players duked it out in what felt like the main event, the laconic Californian was content to tip-toe his way up the leader board Sunday at the relocated Zozo Championship.In the end, he could not be ignored. Cantlay leapfrogged Justin Thomas and Jon Rahm with a thoroughly impressive 65 on Sunday at Sherwood, good for 23-under 265 total and a one-shot victory.
There's always been guys that are better off the lead... Of course, that only cues the over-interpretation:
It’s a validating victory for Cantlay, and one that sees him return to the top 10 in the WorldRankings, moving to No. 9. Which is where he belongs—while the public might not think of him in the same breath as the 20-somethings he beat on Sunday, there’s been a sense inside the golf world that Cantlay is every bit as good as the Thomases, the Rahms, the Morikawas, the Schauffeles of the world. Not quite an underachiever, but capable of more. Watch him on the driving range and you’ll understand. Remember, he’s the guy who shot 60 as an amateur in a PGA Tour event, the one who held the solo back-nine lead at Augusta National for a hot second in 2019.Speaking of Augusta. Add another name to the expanding list of contenders for the Masters.“I was able to win one of the tournaments Tiger won last year,” Cantlay said. Woods won this event last year in Japan but beat just three players this week.“So now I’m just going to go try and win the other event that Tiger won last year.”
Ummm, you mean the President's Cup? But this is the bit that I found...well, arguable:
It’s a validating victory for Cantlay, and one that sees him return to the top 10 in the World Rankings, moving to No. 9. Which is where he belongs—while the public might not think of him in the same breath as the 20-somethings he beat on Sunday, there’s been a sense inside the golf world that Cantlay is every bit as good as the Thomases, the Rahms, the Morikawas, the Schauffeles of the world.
Does he? Is he? I know folks keep putting him in that league, though it's only his third win on Tour. My Spidey-sense keeps coming up "under-achiever", though there's still time to turn that impression around.
Folks got themselves into a tizzy over that final round pairing. No, not that last group featuring the second and third-ranked players in the world.... rather that group that went off at zero-dark-thirty (on the wrong nine). Remember those standardized tests of our youth, featuring the ubiquitous "which of these does not belong" questions? How about this tweet from the guy that didn't belong?
Was This The Last Of Tiger And Phil On A Sunday?
It was a starkly unceremonious end for the two legends who were grouped together in a PGA Tour event for the 38th time. Sixteen strokes off the lead to start the final round of the Zozo Championship, this was a formality. It also was likely the anti-climactic end to a largely anti-climactic head-to-head history between the two titans.
They’ll find themselves in a manufactured group for Rounds 1 and 2 at an event starved for attention somewhere down the road, but the chances of the duo landing together in a meaningful weekend tee time is about as likely as the two sharing a plane ride home.
This is largely the fate of all athletes, think Willie Mays in the 1973 World Series. It might be that we'll only see this at one-offs like the ZoZo, because of the absence of a cut and that they can offer sponsor's exemption to whomever they please. When it comes to the majors, what odds would you give for both guys having weekend tee times? Though the Masters is an exception, given that it's easiest cut in the game.
But what are we to make of Golf.com's Tour Confidential panel? CTL-F: Cantlay yields zero results, yet this is the lead question:
1. Tiger Woods finished tied for 72nd at the Zozo Championship, his first start since the U.S. Open last month, and perhaps his last event until the Masters in three weeks. After a rough opening four-over 76, Woods bounced back with a 66 and a 71 before finishing with a 74. Did this week make you more or less bullish about Tiger’s chances of defending his title at Augusta National?
I'm sorry, was Tiger in the field?
Josh Sens: I think we’ve all learned not to put anything past Tiger. But defending his title was never going to be easy. But I don’t see how this week’s scruffy play could make anyone more bullish on him.Sean Zak: Tiger will be ready to shoot 70 in the first round at ANGC, and that will be a great start to defending his title.Michael Bamberger: It didn’t change them. He can win at Augusta if every last thing falls into place, as it did last year. That’s unlikely to happen. But, of course, it can.
Nick Piastowski: Yes. After Sunday’s final round, he said: “The only thing I can take out of this week that I did positively I feel like each and every day and pretty much every hole is I putted well. I feel like I rolled it great.” Outside of his back – which he said also held up well this week – the flatstick has recently been his biggest foe. And if Tiger said he was bullish over his putting, then I’m bullish over his chances.
Again, to me the biggest takeaway is that these guys think this is the most important subject of the week... I didn't watch all that much of it, but to me Tiger looked as if he was walking gingerly. Folks will tend to over-interpret his one good day on Friday, but there wasn't much to back it up on the weekend.
Tiger did throw us one of his patented head fakes:
The easy prescription is that Woods needs more tournament reps—it is incredibly difficult to compete with the young stars when every tournament you play is your first start in a month. Woods would certainly tell you that he’d love to play more. But his body simply won’t let him, and for Woods and his team, there is a constant push-and-pull between reps and health, and health is going to win that battle each and every time.But Woods seems to be feeling as well as he has at any point in 2020—he said he was going to hit the gym on Monday morning and that he doesn’t plan to wait around on deciding whether to play the Vivint Houston Open.“I'll make the decision soon. I'm not going to wait around on that decision and commit either way, one way or the other….I'll make a decision quickly on whether or not I'm going to play Houston or not.”
Chances of Tiger pegging it in Houston asymptotically approach zero...If he's really feeling that well and can't be bothered playing enough to get sharp, can someone explain why I should care about his prospects?
One major reason I don't expect Tiger to be in Houston is that he's never like playing the week before a major (though he of course would do it if enough zeros were on offer). But this other legend does like to play, he was just put off by the prospect of those pesky spectators... Now, though, further guidance:
Phil Mickelson produced some headlines earlier this week when he suggested he might skip the Houston Open, an event he normally plays the week before the Masters, after officials announced plans to allow a limited number of fans on property for the first time domestically since the COVID-19 pandemic halted play in March.
“For me personally, I don't like the risk that having that happen the week before the Masters,” Mickelson said Wednesday at the Zozo Championship. “I just feel like the week before the Masters, like that's a big tournament we have and I just don't want to have any risk heading in there.”
Three days later, Mickelson clarified his stance on Houston.
He told GolfChannel.com this on Saturday: “That’s not a deciding factor. I’m sure the Tour will do a great job of making it safe.”
We knew with mathematical certainty that his prior comments, which inferred that having fans might not be safe, would be untenable to the Tour, and that he'd be fielding telephone calls from a 904 area code.
But perhaps the most interesting thing to happen at the ZoZo, didn't happen there at all. It was this, in which Bryson asked the Tour to hold his beer:
Bryson's ball speed has hovered in the 190's, so 210 is literally off the charts... That TC panel did find time to react to this, though in an odd manner for sure:
2. Bryson DeChambeau sat out the Zozo, giving him more time to tinker with his swing at home in Texas. On Friday, DeChambeau said he reached another personal milestone, carrying a drive over 400 yards — and that was without his proposed 48-inch driver, which could add even more length. After averaging a Tour-best 322.1 yards in driving distance in 2019-20, DeChambeau is now averaging a staggering 344.4 yards early in the 2020-21 season. Is there a ceiling for DeChambeau’s length? If so, is he nearing it?Sens: Bryson’s distance gains have been insane, but even he is governed by the laws of physics. So yeah. He’s got to be close to maxing out. Unless he pulls a Superman and moves to a planet with a different colored sun. And anyway, do we really want him to get much longer? I know everyone digs the long ball, but it would be nice to watch him have to hit something more than wedge into every par-4.Zak: There is a ceiling. He’s approaching it. But there’s still plenty of room. He’s been at this level for only half a Tour season. It’s not going away until someone else does something about it.Bamberger: Well, basic physics would say there’s a limit, for Dr. DeChambeau or anybody else. But 400-yard carries are not the limit, with the ongoing combination of tee height, clubhead size, face thinness and material, and shaft length and material, to say nothing of bodily maximization and various swing-analysis tools.Piastowski: Full disclosure. I geek out over these types of physics questions. I mean, we’ve all daydreamed once in a while how far our bodies could take us if we focused only on them, right? If I lifted just the right way, and ate just the right way, maybe I, too, could hit it 400. Or more! Or maybe that’s just me. Back to the question. I’m not a scientist. But Bryson’s team more or less is. And, at this point, they seem bound and determined to take this as far as it can go. And yeah, I don’t think they’re done.
How's that Distance Insights Update coming? I'm worried about Bryson, but I'm more worried about the guy that comes after Bryson.... But I totally get that the good folks in St. Andrews and Far Hills are simply waiting for the laws of physics to kick in...
If you feel the need for a laugh, Joel Dahmen's Quest for 170 is the ticket.
The State of Play - An olio of musings on the state of our little game, first more on the current demand among the rank and file from Golf Datatech:
Entering October, play was up 8.7% nationally versus the same period a year ago. That reflects a year-to-date increase of about 29 million more rounds, even with the loss of about 20 million rounds during the spring due to Covid-related shutdowns.
Every state in the continental U.S. has seen increases in play of at least 2% for each of the past three months. A major drop in precipitation helped fuel a 46% September rounds-increase in Minnesota, while other Midwest states also saw notable increases: Illinois (+35%), Wisconsin (+29%), Michigan (+27%), Indiana (+27%) and Ohio (+26%).
Shack links to the CNBC article covering the media world in general, then seeks to interpret its impact in our little fishbowl. Here's the broad argument:
They expect about 25 million U.S. households to cancel their pay-TV subscriptions over the next five years. This is on top of the 25 million homes that have already cut the cord since 2012. At least three major media companies now expect pay-TV subscriptions to stabilize around 50 million, according to people familiar with the matter, who declined to speak on the record because their company plans are private.
The projected decline in subscribers will mean a drop of about $25 billion in cable subscription revenue plus associated advertising losses for the largest U.S. media companies, including Disney, Comcast’s NBCUniversal, AT&T’s WarnerMedia, ViacomCBS, Fox, Discovery, Sinclair and AMC Networks.
This assumption has created a tectonic shift in the media industry. In the last three months, Disney, NBCUniversal, WarnerMedia and ViacomCBS have all announced major reorganizations. They’ve replaced old leaders, consolidated divisions, laid off tens of thousands of employees, and pivoted to streaming video.
$25 billion here and $25 billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money...
Live sports plays an out-sized role for the distributors:
And certain networks, like ESPN, which keep millions of Americans hooked to cable today, may need to pull back on programming costs if too many people cancel. That will only cause more people to cancel.Stabilizing at 50 million (or 55-60 million, as AT&T CEO John Stankey said this week) may be a pipe dream.“The only thing left holding the bundle together today is sports,” said former AOL CEO Jonathan Miller, who stepped down from the board of AMC Networks in July. “There is nothing any of the networks can do about it. The only question now is how far does it fall and how fast, and is there a bottom. And I don’t know if there’s a bottom.”
But, have you seen the ratings recently? We've had no shortage of opportunities to note the "Get Woke - Go Broke" phenomenon but, whatever the cause, NFL, NBA and MLB ratings have been simply dreadful, at a time when there isn't much else to distract folks.
Now the premise of this piece, one Geoff is on board with, is that streaming is the future for media companies, one that marginalizes distributors:
“Media companies have had a fabulous distribution system for decades,” said Tom Rutledge, CEO of Charter Communications, the second-largest U.S. cable company. “Every distributor had to carry their product, because if they didn’t carry networks, the competition would. In a direct-to-consumer world, the whole ecosystem is smaller. It doesn’t mean you can’t win, but there will be a lot of losers
What about the smaller players? Can they compete for new originals against Netflix, Amazon and Apple -- companies with massive balance sheets -- to have the best content going forward?
“The answer is no,” said Bewkes. “These companies are competing against Netflix and Amazon, who have massively more scale for both subscription and advertising at a global level. They’re all going to be collapsed. Only Disney will have enough subscribers and global scale under a distinctive family brand to make it.”
Aren't Netflix and Amazon distributors as well? Here's the pay-off:
The forcing function on change will be Wall Street. If valuations keep declining, media companies will have to act.
LightShed’s Greenfield recommends a ripping-off-the-band-aid approach: Divest the networks now.
“Disney should divest its broadcast and cable networks, Comcast should divest the NBCUniversal cable networks, and there’s no reason why AT&T needs to own the Turner networks,” Greenfield said. “Cable networks are structurally broken.”
Divested and merged media companies will lead to more robust streaming services. This is why Disney agreed to buy Fox’s entertainment assets, including “The Simpsons” and movies such as “The Shape of Water” and “Avatar.”
But it may also accelerate the death of cable TV.
I just live that first sentence, as if Wall Street's decreasing valuations are just something that they randomly assign... They're the messenger.
But the issue to me is the dramatic downsizing at Golf Channel, as it seems to me they're better positioned than even the ESPN behemoth to survive in this changing media landscape. They're subscribers don't just watch the game, they also play the gave with passion and perseverance.
We've already heard that the Golf Channel website might be a casualty of the downsizing, which seems to me unwise. Not only is a website simple to maintain, but it promotes their streaming service and presumably can be helpful in pushing traffic that way. Let me just add this perplexing bit, also from Geoff:
TT has he/she/it/they have been known—aka Tiger Tracker—has become a staple of GolfChannel.com’s presence on social media. The 8-year-old account had become the go-to for fans to track Woods’s every move and could even, at times, become a tad cultish as those who questioned the anonymous Tweeter’s wisdom.
Nonetheless, at 438,800 Twitter followers, it was Golf Channel’s second most-followed account but easily its most beloved. While not profitable, TT was quite good at the whole “engagement” thing MBA types mention as vital to their businesses.
But with the channel laying off most staff and sending a small number to Connecticut to put a bare bones channel on the air until an inevitable move of PGA Tour coverage to Peacock, layoffs have apparently eliminated those behind the beloved Twitter follow.
Tiger Tracker has not posted since September 23rd and sat out Tiger’s opening two rounds in his 2020 ZOZO Championship defense. Fans have been inundating both the official account and folks like myself wanting answers.
What does that "not profitable" even mean, and how would Geoff know it. Twitter is a young-man's game and I'm not your ideal tour guide, but how crazy is it to walk away from something like this and its six-figure followers? The one saving grace is this little bit of postmodernism:
Apparently the main Golf Channel Twitter account had not been informed that the TigerTracker sleeps with the fishes...
The Auld Yellow Toon - As you know, I've had some issues with the changing aesthetics on St. Andrews Links Road, the tiny little street that abuts the finishing hole of the Old Course. My prior issue was with the renaming of the Tom Morris Golf Shop to conform to Open Championship branding protocols. You might think that Old Tom Morris would be part of that branding given his prominence in St. Andrews (not to mention Prestwick), but you'd be wrong....
A while back we had a note about the expansion of Russacks Hotel, which we were reliably informed would use only traditional materials and would conform to its historic location: Now comes tis rendering, confirming that we were played:
But not to worry, Shack informs that it will blend in perfectly at the Open Championship. Just not the next Open, or any Open in our lifetime:
Approved in 2015, the 44-room extension to the historic Rusacks hotel on historic links road is looking anything but historic. Or befitting the Auld Grey Toon.Approved and expected to use “traditional” materials, it appears the scale and blond sheen will be an eyesore for decades. Maybe by the 200th Open in 2072 it’ll take on the aged patina one would have expected the planning commission to have demanded from the outset for this sacred real estate.
I guess the joke's on them, as in a bit of karmic convergence those new rooms come online just as the world has stopped traveling... Well played, sir!
Scenes From The War Zone - You might have thought we'd learned our lesson from the early days of the pandemic, but you'd be quite mistaken. Eamon Lynch with an update from Ireland:
It’s been about six years since I played golf in Ireland, despite visiting the country often in that time. And although I’ve been holed up in a seaside cottage an hour north of Dublin for more than a month, I’m unlikely to tee it on this trip either. But more for reasons of legality than lethargy.
Two rounds were actually planned but fell victim to the two most frustrating forces in Ireland: the weather and the government.
Rain scuppered a long-overdue return to Royal County Down, while a game at County Louth (better known as Baltray) with former European Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley was canceled when every golf course in the country was shuttered under a national lockdown to contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
But Eamon makes a common mistake:
Of course, there are a few things we've learned from the pandemic-to-date, including about the link to Vitamin-D. So, why are they shuttering golf courses? Inevitably, it's the oldest reason in the book, because they can.
Interesting Reads - I need to get on with my day, but I'll leave you with a couple of items you ,ight enjoy. First, it's been forty years since this place opened:
TPC Sawgrass turns 40: Remembering the birth of 'Stadium Golf'
The did, literally, purchase the site for $1, but the course cost a little more... Worth the read, my only disappointment is the absence of a photo showing what the place looked like initially. It had a wild, windswept llok (Shack refers to it as a Pirates of the Caribbean look) which, like Pinehurst No. 2, would benefit from a restoration.
And this is our, It Was twenty years Ago Today item:
The inside story of what the original Titleist Pro V1 launch was really like
They all jumped on the band wagon quickly, except for Stewart Cink.
See you tomorrow?
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