Weekend Wrap

 Not so much the weekend, as the entirety of 2020.  Though, perhaps you'd rather be left to forget it... 

The Year That Was - There were a couple of high points, no?  Charlie Woods?  Yeah, give me some time and I'll come up with something else...

Lots of golf writers trying to pin down this bizarre year.  Shall we sample a specially-curated selection?  Of course, by "specially-curated: I, of course, mean a random selection of items I tripped over, such as this group effort from the Golf Digest writers:

What we'll remember about golf in 2020

This entry covers two popular themes, though the linkage seems tenuous:

By its very nature, because of the questions it asks of those who play, because of its demands for physical exactitude and mental vigilance, and also because of its maddening unpredictability, golf has a way of producing moments that inspire and bring awe. Two satisfying results emerged this

year from championship competition, and it’s likely they will be celebrated well beyond the bounds of this calendar.

Sophia Popov’s victory in the Women’s British Open was special because of that always-welcome narrative of the underdog emerging, and her surprise performance moved us to cheers. And there was Dustin Johnson, the No. 1 player in the world, the very opposite of a long shot, capturing that unique November Masters in record-breaking fashion. Having endured a well-documented odyssey of disappointment and chaos in the majors, Johnson’s “breakthrough,” if we can call it that, brought a poignant denouement that nearly brought him—and us—to tears.

But we’d be remiss to not acknowledge the bigger picture, and that is the undeniable truth that the game itself commanded the spotlight in 2020. As the world collapsed because of the unknowns from the coronavirus pandemic, golf provided a haven of normalcy and hope. It offered spiritual and physical renewal. It invited us outside, allowed for a semblance of camaraderie with friends and reminded many people who had given up on or forgotten the game of its innate virtue as an uplifting exercise of body and mind. Golf was rediscovered as a sanctuary, and because of that the game enjoyed an explosion in popularity. Golf proved to be the ultimate champion in this troubling year. —Dave Shedloski

Dave certainly wanted to get each and every one of those points in...  It's just that the last bit seems the far more important.

Most of these are intensely personal moments, in which the writers find the sanctuary and camaraderie denied them while in lockdown.  Perhaps it's the mod I'm in, but they actually just make me angrier and the leaders that took this away from folks (and, in far too many places, continue to deny it to folks).  This one at least conveys something I had forgotten and predates the Wuhan flu:

I will always remember Jan. 26, 2020, as a horribly sad and surreal day. That Sunday at Torrey Pines, a golf course shrouded in fog during the early morning, we in the media watched

thousands of fans make their way to their favorite spots for the final round of the Farmers Insurance Open. There was a considerable buzz of anticipation, with Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm among the contenders. Tiger Woods was five shots off the lead, a considerable gap, but he’d pulled off magical things on the South Course before, and he was seeking his record-breaking 83rd PGA Tour win. Then, suddenly, who won or lost seemed not to matter at all. Reports came in that Kobe Bryant was in a helicopter crash up the California coast in Calabasas. Bits of awful news trickled in. The former NBA great was gone at age 41. His 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, was with him. They were heading for a youth basketball tournament. There were eight people who perished.

In the media center, reporters stared blankly at their laptops. We spoke in whispers. It was almost impossible to focus on the golf. Many of us made our way out to see Woods, who was a friend and former workout partner to his fellow icon. We watched Tiger closely, took note of his expression and posture. Did he know? Had somebody told him? Fans shouted, “Do it for Mamba!” and Woods would later say he was puzzled by that.

As it turned out, Tiger wouldn’t learn of Kobe’s death until caddie Joe LaCava told him as they walked from the 18th green to the scoring room. Tiger stopped in his tracks. “Excuse me?” he said. One player after another paid tribute to Bryant when they finished, and would do so with words and deeds in the coming days and weeks. Tony Finau (shown above at the Waste Management Phoenix Open) recalled his love for the Lakers and his own mother’s tragic death in a car accident.

I truly felt sorry for Marc Leishman. The good-natured and talented Aussie shot an impressive 65 in the final round to beat Rahm by one and seize his fifth PGA Tour title. It was Australia Day back home, no less. But Leishman’s win would always be tinged with tragedy. “A very sad day,” he said. —Tod Leonard

Not really a golf story, but interesting how it seems to have occurred decades ago...

Golfweek has an interesting take, at least in your humble blogger's opinion:

#AGoodWalk: This was the year golf returned to its walking roots

 Count me as a fan, though the accompanying photo was a tad...well, ironic:

I still love that DJ didn't know how to carry his bag but, as much as I loved seeing these four studs (or, if you prefer, three studs and Rickie) carry, it didn't work on TV because it left them far too much dead air.

This is used to link to a couple of items on great walks in golf that I had missed, first this from Eamon Lynch, covering walks with which your humbler blogger has a passing familiarity:

Scotland looms large among my most memorable walks. Like the living history tour that comes with any round at Prestwick, where the first Open Championship was contested three weeks before Abraham Lincoln was elected. Or any walk around St. Andrews, regardless of whether one has a tee time on the Old. That never disappoints, even when the weather does. A few years ago, I wandered Links road alongside the 18th hole watching dogged golfers stagger home in a thumping hailstorm. And that was in summer!

Good stuff, though this is the Great Minds Think Alike bit that I wanted most to share with you: 

Every golfer has a handful of those in the memory bank. Among mine: the ascent from the Punchbowl green on the 15th hole at Sleepy Hollow in New York to take in the panorama of the Hudson River at the breathtaking 16th, where I whisper as a blessing the name of Gil Hanse, whose restoration erased what Rees Jones had wrought.

I got there first, Eamon, in my 2013 take on Gil Hanse's first restoration of Sleepy Hollow (in conjunction with George Bahto), in which I dug out these archival photos of that 16th hole:

The version on the right I dubbed the Reestrocity, though Tillie's version on the left isn't much better.  

They also link to this piece of favorite walks of their writers which, with the expectation of Maidstone, suffers from being far too predictable.  You think Pebble is a nice walk?  How edgy.

Cypress Point earns a mention, no edgier a choice than Pebble, though it does allow one to Lord over their colleagues that one got an invite.  Your humble blogger is one of the lucky few, though those invites were back in the 1980s, when I wasn't a serious golfer or world-renown golf blogger.  In any event, since I just happen to have this tweet from Alan Shipnuck in one of my hundreds of open browser tabs:

I usually refer to tee shots from elevated tee boxes Golf Porn, but this even more so.

The Tour Confidential panel took their own shots at summing up our year, with all but one passing this test:

It was a strange, challenging but ultimately successful golf year with many memorable and important stories emerging from all levels of the game. When you look back on 2020, which single story — from the professional or recreational ranks — do you think was most significant and/or impactful?

Sean Zak: It’s difficult to look beyond the game’s amateur resurgence. I’ve said this a bunch now, but it’s been delightful to realize how many more golf buddies I have now than I did a year ago. People who I had no idea were interested in the game were suddenly making tee times for me.

Josh Sens: Golf being the first major sport to return to action was a big deal, for sure, especially in the way the Tour helped demonstrate that the game could be played responsibly and safely. But I’m with Sean on the amateur front. It was like something out of Revenge of the Nerds. The same friends and neighbors who used to scoff or roll their eyes when they heard me talking golf or saw me loading my sticks into the car suddenly started treating me like the cool kid on the block. What a great time to be a golfer. Now, if only my favorite local muni weren’t booked solid two months out.

Michael Bamberger: The packed tee sheets at public courses, and private ones, too. All of golf’s health stems from the desire for people to play.

I do think that Mike's point needs to be restated as often as possible.  

The Year That Was, Professional Edition -  I approach the professional category with a notable lack of enthusiasm.  I think it was great that they were able to get back out there, I just think it's secondary to the stunning embrace of the game among civilians.  But also, Jay Monahan's continued assertion that the resumption of play on the PGA Tour somehow drove the volume of recreational play is one I find uniquely delusional and hubristic.  Am I alone in finding it a really smug and off0putting cry for relevance?  It's hardly the first time this year that Jay has shown contempt and indifference for his customer base.

One needn't look hard for encomiums to the Brave Sir Robins of the Tour:

DiMeglio: Covering the PGA Tour in 2020 amid an eerie emptiness revealed silver linings and signs of resilience

It has become a world of adaption, and the PGA Tour was up to the challenge. From the get-go after the COVID-19 shutdown – which began on Friday the 13th of March – the Tour adapted quickly and quite impressively. A disturbing scare in Hilton Head at the RBC Heritage the second week back, where spring break was raging along with the coronavirus to form an appalling twosome, was among the reasons PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan flew north from Florida to the Travelers Championship in Connecticut the following week to read the riot act to players and caddies. Monahan’s words did not fall on deaf ears as the players and caddies fully bought in and safety measures to combat the infectious predator were taken seriously and have been actively followed.

If you say so... I think they did mostly fine, it's just I don't assign an especially high degree of difficulty to it, given their resources.  I'm instinctively more supportive of this effeort:

Nichols: After months of nothing, the LPGA charted a triumphant return befitting of its founders

 For instance, this telling anecdote from the reboot:

The first day back after the LPGA’s 166-day break from tournament golf, my head swiveled back ’round to the 10th tee at Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio, after spotting Sophia Popov carrying

Anne van Dam’s staff bag. Popov had been lighting it up on the Cactus Tour, a women’s mini tour in Arizona which never stopped throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. I made a mental note.

 Times were tough for everyone, but especially for those who had lost their LPGA cards.

The next week, still in Toledo, it was the sleek, minimalist pull cart van Dam sported at the Marathon Classic that caught my eye. The story got even better when I discovered that it was actually Popov’s high-end pull cart, and that she was using it for the afternoon wave.

Two players, one pull cart.

That's your soon-to-be Open Champion, not just humping with a pull-cart, but humping with a shared pull-cart.  

Of course, LPGA majordomo Mike Whan seemed to lose the plot in 2020.  Not only did he allow the Great Wall of Dinah, undermining their signature major, but he squandered the best story of the year, Ms. Popov, by not figuring out how to accommodate her in the fields of several events, most notably that aforementioned ANA.  He now seems to understand the error of his ways, but too late to do him or us any good:

LPGA commissioner Mike Whan pushing to retroactively award CME points to non-members who win

Great, Mike.  Let's revisit your wonderful season-ending event, in which two major championship winners, Popov as well as U.S. Women's Open champion A Lim Kim, were not included, while simultaneously allowing Natalie Gulbis to show of her assets, both of them, one last time.  Natalie posted a tidy +24 in the event which obviously had no cut, a full nine shots worse than anyone else in the field.  Do you see the problem?

Back to the TC, and that one dissenting vote on the most impactful golf story of 2020:

Dylan Dethier: You guys are right in terms of the golf world at large. But in the professional world, Bryson DeChambeau’s transformation was the biggest story — not so much because of the specifics of his gains but because of the conversation it sparked. Bryson became for golf what Steph Curry was for basketball, sparking a revolution in strategy and analytics that’s changing the way other pros see the game. It’s just beginning.

Lots of Bryson-specific coverage, not least this from Alan Shipnuck's coverage of the six most significant stories of the year:

Bryson DeChambeau’s outsized impact in 2020 extended far beyond just his own game

In 2020, Bryson DeChambeau won the U.S. Open, the PGA Tour stop outside of Detroit and

racked up eight other top-10 finishes. He finished 1st in strokes gained off the tee, 6th in money ($4.99 million) and 7th in scoring average (69.24). He had a historically great run on the greens, making 91.2% of his putts from 10 feet and in, the best average recorded since Jim Furyk in 2002.

Then there was DeChambeau’s whirlwind of off-course activities and the endless buzz around him: his enigmatic mini-movies posted to social media; his stream-of-consciousness musings while playing video games on Twitch; the obsession (his and others’) with clubhead speed; the fascination with his shake-and-potatoes diet (protein shakes, that is); the end-is-nigh cacophony from purists as his newfound length off the tee remade the sport; and a million other little ways that Bryson’s persona threatened to overwhelm his accomplishments.

 True enough, and every endeavor can benefit from having a villain...

The TC panel did throw in this interesting query, which is very much up my alley.  

Which golf story from 2020 didn’t get the attention it deserved?

For instance, how is this decision aging?

Zak: The British Open not taking place. I know there are many monetary reasons and plenty of legitimate Covid speculation that kept it from happening, but it certainly was forgotten when the PGA of America, the USGA and the Masters all successfully held their majors. Then when the Women’s Open Championship delivers one of the best stories in years, it tends to look even worse.

It looked plenty bad when announced, and even worse now.  But "monetary reasons" is letting Mr. Slumbers of the hook far too easily...  He took the thirty pieces of silver.

Sens: Not that it got ignored, but I think it’s hard to overstate the growing role that gambling is starting to play in golf. We saw some of its influence this year in the growing popularity of gaming apps and office pools and assorted stats and graphics, as well as in tournament broadcasts that allow viewers to customize who they want to follow. Bigger waves are coming, which, depending on whom you ask, is either cause for celebration or concern.

Early days, but Josh is spot on.  

Dethier: Jin Young Ko capturing the CME Group Tour Championship and the biggest check in the women’s game despite just four starts on the LPGA Tour in 2020 was quite the late-season flex for the world No. 1. She said she wanted to win enough money to buy a house — I hope she got the one she wanted!

Pretty absurd, though I'll give Mike Whan a pass here.  Not much could be done with the South Korean girls all at home when the pandemic hit.  She certainly showed why she's the top player in the game, but she basically lost a full season.

 Mike Bamberger sums up nicely:

Bamberger: The packed tee sheets at public courses, and private ones, too. All of golf’s health stems from the desire for people to play.

I feel like I've heard that before, though it actually benefits from the repetition.

I'm sure we'll have more of these types of stories through the week, but let's spend just a little time on some other stories.

Olympic Golf -  Chief Inspector Dawson is about to ride off into the sunset, though there's that sticky bit about ensuring the proper legacy.  I find amusing the fact that they continue to crow about the success of that 2016 competition, yet there's a defensiveness that always creeps into any discussion.  The Chief Inspector wants us to be very clear that any dissatisfaction with the format should not be blamed on him:

Dawson underlined that the decision to use strokeplay for the individual male and female golf competitions at the Olympics - criticised by some in the run-up to Rio 2016 as being too slow - was effectively demanded by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

"They [the IOC] wanted the format in the Olympic Games that was prevalent in the sport, not some fancy format for the Olympics," he said.

"And strokeplay is the way that golf largely determines its major champions."

Largely  More like exclusively, but talk about missing the point.

Do we determine major champions by allowing them to compete against only a handful of other world-class players?  The problem isn't stroke play of the individual competition, it's rather the small field of world class players invited.  Peter, if you can't understand that or don't have the influence to fic it, then you're doing the game a favor by getting out of the way...  

If you want us to take it seriously, then do the hard work of making it a serious competition.  As things now stand, the 2021 event will include Rory Sabbatini but has no place for Xander Schauffele, Webb Simpson or Patrick Cantlay.  Remind me again of why I should care?

Which is not to say that this wouldn't be a good idea:

Asked if he sees that changing, Dawson responded: "We would like to try to find a way, potentially, of getting at some kind of team format as part of the golf process.

"It would simply be the addition of the performances of the individuals, adding together their gross scores.

"There have been other formats where that has been done – at the Canada Cup and the World Golf Championships.

"A personal view is that I would like to see that add to the competitive landscape of the Games - but that’s a matter for others now.

"I’m sure those discussions will go forward.

"But these are very much embryonic thoughts."

Embryonic or stillborn?  So, remember all those hagiographic stories  of golf's governing bodies cooperating for the good of the game?  We're all in this together, or so they continually tell us, though their actions paint quite the different tale.  But this article on the subject at golf.com tells us why Peter's limited approach to a team competition was rejected by the IOC:

“They also made it clear, and this is maybe a subject of ongoing discussion, that they don’t want team sports that are simply the addition of individual performances,” Dawson said. “For example, football is a team sport, where everyone interacts. It’s not just the addition of performances, although some sports in the Olympics are still like that and have been for a while.

This may be a first, but I agree with the IOC.  Staying with this piece, you'll be shocked, shocked, I tell you, to learn that we're not all in this together:

The Olympic Committee’s objections weren’t the only issues in implementing a team format. Equally difficult was negotiating a schedule gap to allow for Olympic competition with each of the major professional tours.

Even if the IGF managed to secure approval for a second team-based event (mirroring events like swimming, track-and-field and gymnastics), getting the professional tours to agree to a two-week work stoppage was unlikely.

“We didn’t have the option in the bidding process of putting a team format together,” Dawson said. “And Tours didn’t want to stop play for two weeks for the Olympics, they wanted to stop for one week. So there wasn’t time for a separate team event.”

Chicken, egg?  Is Jay selfishly maintaining his prerogatives at the expense of the greater good of the game, or did he just take a look at the profoundly unserious format and determine that he's not shutting down his goldmine for that nonsense?

Back to the TC panel who try to do Peter's former job for him:

IGF President Peter Dawson said in an interview this week that he would like to see a team golf competition at the Olympics, though there are no current plans in place for such a change. What would be the best way to structure a team format for Olympic golf?

Zak: The main issue, it seems, is that the PGA and LPGA tours are uninterested in taking multiple weeks off during peak season. That’s understandable, but we have to meet in the middle and just make a more efficient schedule. Sixty men and 60 women playing the same course on the same day for singles. Then after four days we have 32 doubles teams (16 men, 16 women) playing a match play tournament. You could get it all done in 11 days, hand out six gold medals and take a 3-year breath before having to do it again.

Sens: I personally wouldn’t miss the singles at all. We get plenty of individual golf competitions throughout the year already. Skip that part. Make it two-player teams. Make it a round-robin, as they do any number of Olympic sports.

Dethier: The fact that the Olympic golf competitions are just 72-hole stroke play tournaments is one of the most backwards, preposterous things in all of golf. It’s the Olympics! How do you not build in any of the intrigue that comes with a team competition, the stuff that makes the Ryder, Solheim and Presidents Cups so much fun? Some version of Sean’s tournament makes sense, but however it begins the event should end with doubles teams of men and women playing match play alternate-shot (or modified alt-shot) representing their country. This would be so much fun it’s crazy it hasn’t happened.

Bamberger: Completely agree with my distinguished colleagues above.

I remain amused at how confused folks can get on this subject, failing to understand why an event like the Ryder Cup can de so damn exciting.  It's the combo guys, both match play and team competitions are worthy concepts, though in each case they can leave you wanting more.  Serendipity can be found in the combination of the two, look no further than the NCAAs.

Two-man teams could work, but the obvious issue is how many teams will the U.S. (and the South Korean ladies) be allowed.  Does anyone remember how many East German sleds were allowed in the bobsled?  

If you want to make it memorable, team match play is the path.  If you want to make the individual competition at least credible, then the field size needs to be dramatically increased and the limitations on participants per country dramatically relaxed.  otherwise, there's nothing there that's interesting or meaningful.

I had hoped to cover a few more items, but have consumed the available time.  We'll leave those for another day.