Back where it belongs as part of the Florida Swing, the event feels pretty major to your humble blogger, at least judged by the number of open browser tabs... Shall we?
It Was Twenty Years Ago Today - Check that, it was only the one year. Just, you know, one year that felt like twenty...
Bob Harig trots out his item reflecting on last year's iteration of this event and, unlike many, at least brushes up against the dark underbelly of the Tour's indecisiveness and dissing of their paying customers:
Now, one of the strongest fields of the year is back at TPC Sawgrass' famed Stadium Course. Everything is far different than it was that week one year ago, a time when no one knew what was to come.
Jay Monahan, Neanderthal.
For instance, the Players went forward with a Chainsmokers concert that Tuesday in front of thousands of spectators. PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan did an interview touting the PGA Tour's new television rights deal. Tiger Woods was announced as one of the next members of the World Golf Hall of Fame.
Play went on. The first round started up on Thursday, the day after NBA player Rudy Gobert tested positive and the league announced the season had been halted. The tour, though, still planned to go forward with the next three rounds, just without spectators.
"Nobody knew how to feel,'' Max Homa recalled recently. "It was a little freaky.''
You know how I've been milking that Chainsmokers concert, but Harig and others have been carrying Monahan's water for the last year. Obviously it was a quick-developing situation, but the Tour's vacillation made it clear that the only thing that concerned them was that the party continue to rock on.
Harig's best is his capturing, intentionally or not, the profound lack of leadership in evidence:
On Friday, McIlroy met with reporters after clearing out his locker at Sawgrass. He answeredquestions about how he would handle the next few weeks. He was asked about the Masters, just a few weeks away, and how he was going to prepare for it. The question was asked, but only timidly, about whether everyone should be standing this close together while talking with him.
Not long after, Monahan held a news conference to explain what happened -- how the Tour went from playing, to playing with no spectators, to finally calling it all off. He did it in a packed tent with more than 100 reporters crowded into the room.
In a room with other human beings? Well, now, we can't have that...
If I've been a dog with a bone on that Tuesday night, Shack has been equally obsessed with another aspect of that week. Last year during Players Week, Jay appeared on Squawk Box with Host Joe Kernan to hype the Tour's new rights packages. Getting those deals done before the inevitable crash in the vale of TV rights (not to mention our pesky little pandemic) was no doubt a good thing, awkwardly hyping it as the Wuhan Flu destroyed life as we know it only invited comparisons to Nero, apocryphal as that story is.
In any event, Jay made the odd choice to return to Squawk Box, and we'll just allow Geoff to rant:
You know the old saying, if at first you don’t succeed, go on CNBC again!
For reasons unknown Commissioner Jay Monahan was booked on CNBC a year after the disastrous TV deal rollout as markets crashed. At least this time, the screen wasn’t soaked in red though the shine factor was better than most.
CNBC’s Joe Kernen is that guy who spends too much in the 19th hole grill, knows just enough to be dangerous and doesn’t really listen to answers. He’s the guy who asks how your Uncle Steve is doing, only to be informed Steve died in a fiery car crash, and then tells you an adorable story about how terrible of a cart driver Steve could be.
So if you want to squirm, the clip with Kernen repeatedly asking Monahan questions about Tiger Woods and not taking hints that little can be said at this point, here it is. The second clip isn’t working on the CNBC site, but it does contain one noteworthy remark from Monahan. He reveals a $160 million haul for charities in 2020, down from $200 million in a normal year.
Full disclosure: I've not watched the video, because life is far too short...Geoff's got some transcript goodies for us as well, including this frightening imagery:
Q. For you personally, I'm just wondering, outside of a year ago this week, what was your most trying moment during this last 11 plus months and what has been maybe your most triumphant or rewarding moment as you've carried on?
JAY MONAHAN: You know, I'll start with the positives. I think that the way that our sport came together and the way that sports in general came together. But you look at all the golf organizations that we partner with, I don't think there was ever a period of time where we worked more closely together, more honestly together, more directly together. Had a lot of hard conversations about what we thought we needed to do for our sport and we operated as, as I think you've heard several of us say, Golf Incorporated.
I think that served the game very, very well, and to see the game flourish as a result of that and see more people coming into our game, more people making golf their thing, and for the game to become more and more welcoming and inclusive in the process, I think big picture wise that's very positive.
To your humble blogger there could not be words more frightening than, "Golf Incorporated." What you're saying, is that the geniuses the came up with the FedEx Cup and Olympic Golf will run everything as they see fit... Yeah, what could go wrong?
Then, in a rather abrupt segue, he appends this to that answer:
I don't know if they were great, but there's no question that they let a bunch of them go...Oddly, just as they were opening Valhalla last month....I think there were a lot of challenging moments. It's hard to pick one, but as the leader of this organization when you have to let great people go and you have to furlough workers and you have to take some of the steps that we take, those are things that I'll never forget, and I still feel today. That's the kind of thing that'll always stay with you.
Light, coffee, workspace: PGA Tour's 'Global Home' opening in February on time, on budget
New building cost $65 million eventually will house nearly 800 PGA Tour employees
Ya got that? Ponte Vedra Beach as the "Global Home"... I agree, just we need to make clear that it's the Global Home For All But the Important Events™.
The first thing most visitors to the PGA Tour’s Global Home notice is there isn’t much difference between being inside or outside the 187,000-square-foot building off County Road 210 in Ponte Vedra Beach.
Thanks to five large skylights, a “collaborative atrium,” connecting the two wings and floor-to-ceiling windows, natural light is one of the main features of the building designed by Foster + Partners and built by Clark Construction – which also built the TPC Sawgrass clubhouse in 2007.
“It’s 100 percent intentional,” said Kirsten Sabia, the Tour’s vice president for integrated communications on Thursday after leading a media group through the building. “Prior to designing it, Foster interview a number of employees and asked them what they desired in a new building. The top-two answers were natural light and meeting space. You feel energized when you walk into this building and you feel energized when you walk out.”
Energized, eh? Does that still apply when you walk out carrying a box with your personal items?
Care to read about the buildings feature set? Tough luck, 'cause I'm on a roll:
• Nearly 100 meeting spaces, ranging from small rooms with a table and several chairs to the conference room off Monahan’s office that can seat around two dozen participants.• A fitness center with aerobic machines, weights, rooms for yoga, pilates and Zumba classes and full locker rooms and showers.• A dining area that includes a salad bar, sandwich bar and pizza oven. Food purchases will be made from area vendors, produce wholesalers and even farms, and plans are to start a vegetable and spice garden.• A coffee bar where the staff will bake their own pastries and bread.• There are numerous examples of art on display by First Coast artists, including colorful murals to brighten up otherwise institutional interior stairwells.• An indoor golf simulator where employees can take a few minutes from their day to hit a few balls.• A “genius bar,” for technical support on computers, laptops and smartphones.
Can you say "Edifice Complex"? I thought you could. Remember this next time Jay touts their charitable contributions. Apparently giving really does start at home...I believe the last word should go to Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree
Where Alph, the sacred river, ranThrough caverns measureless to manDown to a sunless sea.
I've been needing a nickname for Monahan, bitterly clinging to memories of Nurse Ratched. Kubla Jay might just be the answer....
As great as the event is, however, there's just something missing that leaves Jay...errr, strike that, Kubla Jay, needing more. They need it to be a major, and that just hasn't happened for them, so apparently they're going to whine and stamp their feet until it does. That leads to the nonsensical FedEx Cup, which lines their pockets but leaves them perpetually unsatisfied. They'll just have to console themselves in their five atria and one hundred meeting spaces...
The Golf.com staff combined on six storylines for the week, including this unobjectionable bit:
The return of one of golf’s best closing stretches
Last year, with the cancelation of the tournament, we missed out on one of the best, most diabolical risk/reward finishing stretches on Tour — exactly what fans want to see in one of the sport’s premier events. The par-5 16th, with water right on the approach, is one of the easiest holes and eagles are up for grabs. The island green par-3 17th induces nervy swings and exciting drama few golf holes in the world can replicate, and the par-4 18th is a bendy finisher around water and one of the course’s most difficult holes. Together, they are beautiful, watery synergy. Better yet, the Players will have fans on site (capped at 20%). Who will thrive (or flounder?) on the Stadium Course’s finishing stretch? Just listen for the cheers and jeers. — Josh Berhow
Water synergy? Yanno, it is a very dramatic stretch of holes, a perfect mix of opportunity and difficulty. I sometimes struggle with the fairness issue, but there's little doubt that watching the leaders tackle these holes draws us to the TV like moths to a flame.
Probably the funniest part about that finishing stretch is how long it took them to use it for a playoff. All they had to do was ask me...
Let's talk about these three holes a bit. First the Par-4.25 16th, which I think gets lost a bit in the buzz over the island green. For instance, above the call No. 16 one of the easiest holes on the golf course, which is the case just by the numbers. But calling this a Five-Par is largely irrelevant, because most of the players arriving here at %:00 on a Sunday afternoon have to make four, and therein lies the drama.
The most ridiculous thing I've seen in the last few days is this from Luke Kerr-Dineen, who redesigns the hole for us, see if you can suss out how:
Yup. There's a second, much smaller island in that vast body of water, and Luke wants (tongue-in-cheek, perhaps) wants them to go for a green the size of Cindy Crawford's mole with long irons. The part Luke elides is what's wrong with it as it is? Pretty much nothing, methinks.
As for the famed 17th, who doesn't like a good train wreck?
Players 2021: The worst 17th hole collapses in TPC Sawgrass history
This is a follow up to that Shane Ryan Mark Broadie pairing that analyzed the hole's difficulty. Here they rank the disasters in order of the effect on win probability, rather than merely by score or number of balls in the water. Their first citation is harmed by this methodology, because it misses the piel-on indignities:
6. Len Mattiace, 1998: 25 percent to 0You can see Mattiace’s first water shot here, but the video doesn’t quite tell the story, because after his next attempt found the bunker, he went from sand to water, wet again. He had been just a single shot off the lead at 10 under heading into the hole, but after making a quintuple-bogey 8, his chances went from “decent” to “no way in hell.” To that point, Mattiace had never won a PGA Tour event, but would remedy that in 2002 with a pair of wins.
This got nosed out for the win, but is no doubt the most famous such meltdown, because he was tied with you-know-who at the time:
2. Sergio Garcia, 2013: 44 percent to 0
We all remember this one, don’t we?
The situation was already fraught considering Sergio’s complicated relationship with his co-leader, Tiger Woods, and whether he was trying too hard to be perfect, or whether the nerves overwhelmed him, his double dip into the island waters gave us a memory we won’t forget … even if we wish we could.
As for No. 18, nice little hole you got there. Sure would be a shame if anything happened to it...
What could happen to it? Bryson...
But say there was a way out of that? In DeChambeau’s vision, he’d send his tee shot left of that left water. He wouldn’t have to worry about missing left or right, only hitting it far enough to carry to the other side. From there, he’d have just a short iron from a more receptive angle.
“It just gives you a better shot into the green, I think personally,” DeChambeau said. “Where you can just hit it a little long and you’re always going to be okay. Considering if you try and hit the fairway out to the right…” There, DeChambeau caught himself so as not to take reporters too far down the rabbit hole with him.
“It’s probably not worth it. I mean, the cover’s like 310, but we’ll see. I just, I look at all options and hopefully there’s an advantage there. But if not I’ll just hit 4-iron down the fairway and hopefully an 8-iron or 7-iron into the green.”
Wasn't it just last week he was driving Par-5's... Nothing to see here.
Perhaps the funniest part of this is the news that it's been done. What, you've not heard of the Sihota Line?
Bryson DeChambeau's thought of driving it over the lake and into the ninth fairway while playing No. 18 this week at TPC Sawgrass isn't unprecedented.
The aggressive line is already known as “The Sihota Line.”
Last September at the AJGA Junior Players Championship, Jeevan Sihota, a high-school junior from Victoria, British Columbia, played the Stadium Course's par-4 finishing hole down the ninth all three days.
“It’s a lot wider target to hit,” Sihota told GolfChannel.com on Tuesday. “I knew I had speeds capable of doing it, so I figured why not? It leaves you a better angle into the green and basically takes the water out of play.”
Bryson may not be revolutionary, but I'm not sure about this kid.
But worry not, the Tour has us covered:
The Bryson Rule is in effect. The PGA Tour announced on Tuesday that it would set up internal out-of-bounds at TPC Sawgrass, preventing Bryson DeChambeau from taking a potential alternate route to the challenging 18th hole at the Players.
“In the interest of safety for spectators and other personnel, the Players Championship Rules Committee has installed an internal out of bounds left of the lake for play of hole 18,” the Tour’s statement read. (The Tour did not mention DeChambeau in the statement.)
Geoff ties together these threads in this little rantette:
I think it’s well established that no single chintzier setup element exists than internal out of bounds. It goes against everything that made people start whapping wobbly balls around a cross-country path before indoor plumbing and floss.
Naturally, the safety notion is absurd given that you stand a much better chance of getting hit by a 325 yard incoming Titleist while minding your own business than in that area at TPC Sawgrass.
But this adds to the Bryson legend and hopefully highlights the distance issue in a way that hits home. At the Global Home.
Well, yeah. And I'm quite worried about what they'll do the the actual Global Home next summer...
One more of those storylines that got us started:
Every shot live!
Last week’s PGA Tour/Amazon announcement wasn’t just big news for those of us with an affinity for marketing buzzwords like “deep learning cloud provider” — it was noteworthy for everyone who watches golf, period. With Amazon’s high-tech platform, the Tour is capable of broadening its entertainment reach in everything from live television broadcasts to second- and third-screen viewing. This week, “Every Shot Live” will put the new partnership on display for the first time. Every single shot taken by every single player in the field will be available for fans through the PGA Tour Live and NBC Sports Gold apps. In all, the Tour estimates some 32,000 shots will be available for viewing by the end of the weekend — all processed, uploaded and stored for viewing by Amazon servers. Think you can’t watch too much golf? This weekend, it’s time to find out. — James Colgan
And the market for this would be?
Who Ya Got? - I'm not overly invested in the picking bit, my reputation as the '62 Mets of Fantasy Golf notwithstanding. Though sometimes the sleeper picks can be fun. The Golf.com staff took their shots here, with these cherry-picked selections (this from Alan Bastable):
To-win: Viktor Hovland, +2,800. Barring a weekend slip-up at Bay Hill last week, Hovland is as hot as any player in the game, with four top-five finishes, including a win, in his past six starts. He hits greens (ranked 23rd on Tour), makes birdies in bunches (9th) and knows how to score (10th) — a recipe for success at the Stadium Course.
Good player who'll win somewhere soon for sure. Though that data set seems rather weak... for instance, there's no fewer than 22 guys that hit more greens, so what's wrong with them?
James Colgan is no doubt big on equity, though I doubt the game of golf will conform to his level of magical thinking:
To-win: Hideki Matsuyama, +4,000. Oh how quickly we forget Hideki’s 63 in the opening round of last year’s Players. Had the Tour not stopped play, it’s quite possible Matsuyama could have entered this year’s tournament the returning champion (and to think he hasn’t won since!). I like Hideki to finish what he started this week.
No, we didn't in fact forget it, we just know it has nothing to do with what happens now. Hideki got screwed, but that and $5.00 might get you a cup of coffee.
Nick, are you sure you don't want to keep this in your back pocket for the sleeper picks?
To-win: Christiaan Bezuidenhout, +7,500. I’m following the money on this one. According to our friends at oddschecker.com, Bezuidenhout, as of Monday, has received the most bets of anyone over the past week. He also shot an impressive seven under in his one round last year.
It's mostly the usual suspects, with votes also for Rahm, JT, Morikawa (2x) and Webb, but votes also for the overdue Tony Finau and Scottie Scheffler.
The sleeper column is interesting as well, though we could argue about whether these guys qualify:
Alan Bastable
Sleeper pick: Branden Grace, +22,500. Five or six years ago, Grace seemed destined to be the next great South African major winner, notching five top-six finishes in nine major starts from 2015-17. That hasn’t panned out (yet), but Grace has begun to show signs of his old self, winning in Puerto Rico a couple of weeks ago.
James Colgan
Sleeper pick: Shane Lowry, +20,000. Always fun to get a major championship winner for +20,000 on tournament week. Lowry is by no means a lock to stick in contention, but I’d gladly take him above some of the other choices at these odds.
Jonathan Wall
Sleeper pick: Marc Leishman, +12,500. Going on a hunch that Leishman gets it back on track this week.
There are more sleepery picks as well, though none completely out of the blue.
Better Than Most - It does get a little old from the incessant replays, but just a couple of notes adding to the aura of that putt. Of course, the first oddity is that it happened on a Saturday:
The putt also is a bit of an oddity because it’s one of the most memorable golf shots in history — on a Saturday. Almost every shot that has earned its creator immortality for that moment was during a final round: Gene Sarazen’s 4-wood for an albatross at No. 15 in the 1935 Masters, Jack Nicklaus’ 1-iron approach and Tom Watson’s chip-in at Pebble Beach’s 17th hole in U.S. Opens a decade apart, Seve Ballesteros hitting from a parking lot at Royal Lytham and St. Annes in the 1979 Open Championship, Nicklaus’ putt at No. 17 in the 1986 Masters, Larry Mize’s sudden death hole-out at No. 11 a year later at Augusta, and yes, Woods’ dramatic chip at No. 16 in the 2005 Masters all came on Sunday.
The second is the role of an extra, and we start with said extra observing the event:
PGA Tour player Fred Funk was more than 300 yards away, standing in the 18th fairway of the TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course when he heard the noise.
“What the hell just happened?” he asked caddie Paul Jungman.
It so happens the Funkmeister was more than just an observer:
NBC went to commercial and quickly, Koch told producer Tommy Roy, Hicks and analyst Johnny Miller what he had seen of every player whose tee shot landed on the top shelf of thegreen, or behind the hole: the putt was a double- and even a triple-breaker, depending on how far left it was and would be motoring when it hit the downslope.
In the group before, Funk had a putt of about 15 feet, but down the path Woods’ ball would have to take to the hole once it hit the slope, and four-putted for double-bogey.
Very few people knew, however, that between Woods’ chip and putt at No. 16, he watched Funk hit each one of his four putts. While Woods would tell Koch later that he never practiced a putt from that spot on the green to the Saturday hole placement, he had already seen how Funk’s putt reacted.
“Glad I could help,” Funk said. “That was one of the most embarrassing moments of my golf career.”
Per Tiger, it helped indeed:
Woods, to this day, credits Funk.
“I was lucky enough to have seen Fred miss that first putt and then four-putt,” Woods said. “If I hadn’t seen him to that, I would never have made that putt.”
When Phil finally won his Masters in ;'04, he had Chris DiMarco helpfully leave a bunker shot on his line, so fair is fair.
Speaking of which, anyone remember who Tiger played with that day? This might help:
As Woods began a bit of a victory lap around the green and towards the hole to get his ball, he passed Mackay. The TV broadcast at the time shows Mackay with his head down — just as he described in comparing the roar of the crowd to a wave knocking a swimmer down — and laughing.
“You get crushed by the wall of sound,” Mackay said. “I’ve felt it a number of times when Phil hit a great shot, and this time with Tiger. I was laughing to myself because it was so unlikely, but it was just so Tiger. I was asking myself, ‘Is there anything this guy can’t do?’ You had to laugh. It was that amazing.”
They do get front row seats for some pretty amazing stuff...
Hope that gets you in the mood for The Players. I expect we'll next see each other Friday morning to hash out the first round play. Enjoy it.
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