Weekend Wrap

With the Match Play and Spring upon us, it's nice that w ecan put this dreadful winter behind us.

Honda Happenings - What if they held a PGA Tour event, and nobody showed up?  Or, nobody of whom you'd actually heard?  Such was the case this week and, when modest weekends winds rendered Jack's creation seemingly unplayable, it had the feel of a minor league demolition derby.

I still think you can find enjoyment in such events, watching a rabbit such as Matt Jones fight his way towards a career-changing (life-changing, even) win can sometimes be more interesting than watching a couple of the alpha dogs duke it out for a minor title.  Mike Bamberger takes his shot at it, though there's a bit of a mismatch involved:

Jones’ Sunday 68, two under par at PGA National, gave him a five-shot win over Brandon Hagy. Other players finishing eighth or better include Chase Seiffert, Denny McCarthy. So, yes, it was

not a star-studded finale. Here are three people who do not care: Matt Jones; Lance Bailey (the winner’s caddie); Melissa Jones (the winner’s wife.) Melissa, as Melissa Weber, was the Miss Idaho in 2009. Someday her husband will be more famous in the Gem State than she. The couple lives in Arizona—Jones attended Arizona State—with their three children.

It’s always fun when an Aussie wins on the PGA Tour. You’ll hear Australian reporters say things like, “Good on you, mate.” You hear a level of candor you don’t often get from American players.

Every dog has its day...  He'll not be confused with the greats of our game, though that -2 final round might well have been as good as any of the greats could have managed in those conditions on that ridiculous golf course.... And that doesn't account for the Thursday 61, which might prove to be the round of the year.

Everything you need to know about this week can be summed up in this Q&A from the Tour Confidential panel, where that which is not asked tells us everything:

Matt Jones took home this week’s Honda Classic with a dominant five-shot victory. But the tournament was also an off-week for many top pros; just six top-50 players teed it up and the event’s strength of field continues to plummet in its new spot on the schedule. Should the Tour be trying to revitalize the field at PGA National?

Bamberger: Just the weirdness of the schedule this year. I don’t think the Tour needs to do anything too drastic. All these events have a Darwinian element to them. Honda has had many great years, too. What Matt Jones did was neat to see, no matter who he had to beat down the stretch. Or should that be whom? I’m bad at that.

Zak: Weirdness of the schedule every year! The sameness of the stops and the guaranteed importance of WGCs and elevated events means the Honda just doesn’t mean much to top 50 players. It is what it is. They’d all tell you that.

Dethier: Not every tournament can be above average. To Sean’s point, we (and the top pros) have so many tournaments that we (and the top pros) are required to care about that something has to get left behind. With this year’s schedule, the Honda became an easy skip — and it may continue that way, too. If the Tour wants to prioritize the Honda in particular, it can, but there’s a reality they’re dealing with: If every week is extra, special, none of them are.

Colgan: The Honda falls during a really unfortunate stretch in the golf calendar for a non-major event. If the Tour wants to goose interest (which it should), it should look into switching the tournament dates. But the logistical ends created by a schedule shift likely don’t justify the means.

Bastable: Yep, too many weeks on the schedule means too much competition for the best players. Eventually the system catches up to just about every regular Tour stop. Also, it’s a tough, tough course. Not everyone’s cup of tea.

Yes, and it gets even worse when you consider how many of those players skipping the event would be sleeping in their own beds...

It's just a brutal stretch of the schedule, which makes me harken back to Friday's discussion when, in the context of the Olympics, we suggested that the game might already have enough big events.  In the current five-week stretch, Kubla Jay has jammed in two WGCs and The Players.  And the week before that stretch starts was Riviera, which as a certified purist I'm legally required to note, isn't chopped liver.

The other problem is that, much as we love it, the Match Play is problematic for these guys because of the uncertainty as to how much golf will be played.  We'll get to that below, but Jack seems to think the Tour will grant them relief:

The legendary golfer, whose charity is the primary beneficiary of the Honda Classic, made it

clear Sunday he does not believe the tournament is in a good spot coming between the Players Championship and a World Golf Championship event.

“No, that won’t work out,” he said when asked if remaining in the spot is good for Honda. “I think that’s going to be changed next year.

“It will be different on the schedule; I think the Tour schedule will be different. I think it will be much better for the Honda tournament, I think they’ll have a good field.”

OK, Jack, so who goes the week between the Players and the Match Play?  It's downright Darwinian, but they've already destroyed the Valspar, so it would seem to be between Jack and Arnie....  And since Jack has two events, don't we need to protect Arnie's event?

Did you catch any of Aaron Wise's play?  I remember watching him win his NCAA titles, and he's already won on Tour once, but OMG:

On Saturday, Aaron Wise's tumble down the leader board was more of a slow, gradual burn. On Sunday, his fall lasted all of 30 seconds, and it may have cost him the tournament.

Wise, who led by as many as six shots on Saturday, trailed Matt Jones by three when he began the final round of the Honda Classic. Three straight birdies at the third, fourth and fifth holes at PGA National got him right back in the mix, and he was able to make the turn in 32, pulling within one of Jones' lead.

But things took an ugly turn at the 10th, where Wise found a greenside bunker and blasted his third shot to 27 feet. His par putt rolled three feet past the hole, leaving him with a knee-knocker for bogey. He missed, then missed the tap-in from less than three feet for double on the way back. Four putts. Woof.

Wise also missed a shortie on Saturday in the midst of his free-fall, and a few of those didn't so much as threaten the cup.  But it wasn't just Aaron, as I saw more missed gimmes this week than in a month of our own fourball play...   

To your humble blogger, Sunday set up as a battle of good vs. evil.  To the extent Matt Jones is known for anything, it's for an extremely quick trigger finger.  He sets up and goes before the viewer is ready, to such an extent that even the announcers were laughing about it.  But as soon as I saw the final round pairing, I assumed he was going to have a long day...literally.

Does anyone remember baseball player Mike Hargrove?  A very decent player for the Rangers and Indians (are we allowed to say Indians?), he also had a Hall-of-Fame nickname:

He also attained the nickname "The Human Rain Delay" for his deliberate routine at the plate before each at-bat and before each pitch. He drove pitchers crazy by stepping out of the batter's box after each pitch and starting his routine, which consisted of (1) adjusting his helmet, (2) adjusting his batting glove, making sure it was tight on his hand and especially the thumb, (3) pulling each sleeve on his uniform up about an inch, and (4) wiping each hand on his uniform pants – and then sometimes repeating the whole process again – before finally settling back into the box. Towards the end of his career this trait was very well known and often commented upon by broadcasters. Adding further to his "Human Rain Delay" moniker was his extremely fine bat control, which allowed him to foul off countless pitches.

Jones was unfortunately paired with golf's Human Rain Delay, Mr. J.B. Holmes.  Good luck finding a golf writer that will tackle this issue, but Geoff at least mentions it:

Two-time Australian Open winner Matt Jones returning to the PGA Tour winner’s circle after major putting struggles was impressive.

But the faster-than-most Aussie had to deal with a dreadful final round pace that had the leading groups taking 4:20 (twosomes!) and alongside never-ready J.B. Holmes, who stumbled to a 79.

Holmes, not that he cares or will ever change, had his lack of preparedness to play called out during the NBC broadcast. (At least, the parts where I remained awake.)

Props to caddie-turned-broadcaster Bones for that reference.  Bones let us know that Jones and Holmes were standing a fairway for a bit waiting for the green to clear.  Notwithstanding that wait, it was only when the green cleared that Holmes could work it into his schedule to start the discussion of club choice.

For most, the signature J.B. Holmes time-lapse photograph would be that scene in the 18th fairway at Torrey Pines.  With the tournament on the line, J.B. spent an eternity throwing up grass waiting for his wind until approximately Tuesday morning.  I exaggerate, but not by all that much.... I think I have a better example of his obstinate refusal to be ready when it's his turn, though this one was comedy gold in another way, one that exposes another less than flattering side of J.B.  In this case he needed eagle to force a playoff....  and ended up laying up.  Faced with a hard shot (and the winds were very tricky) J.B. put the lie to the thought that these guys only care about winning, and actually laid up to protect his second-place position.

My example comes from that 2019 Open at Royal Portrush.  The first hole isn't a very good one, featuring OB on both sides.  The players used irons off that tee all week, as there was no other choice.  So J.B. comes to the first tee on Sunday, having played it three times already in competition and God knows how many times in practice, and gets announced....  Then the cameras show him consulting with his caddie over club choice.... He should have been on the clock on his opening tee shot.  But, at times there is a God, as Mr. Holmes shot a nice, tight little 87 that day...  

This Tweet nails it:

There was also this from the USA Today game story:

J.B. Holmes played in the final group with Jones, but his hopes were quickly dashed with a bogey-double bogey start. Holmes shot 79 and faded to 46th.

Quickly?  If only... 

But there is actually a new pace-of-play policy that focuses on individual players, so maybe there's hope:

Following decades of indifference toward slow play the Tour, at least partially prompted by public backlash against one of its stars, reimagined its pace-of-play policy and the result was a seismic shift in how slow play is measured and how players are held accountable.

The new policy includes an “observation list,” excessive shot times and increased penalties and fines, but the most important change is how the Tour defines slow play. Instead of focusing on the pace of a single group, which had been the basis of the old policy, the new rules are designed to cast a spotlight on the game’s habitually slow based on hard data.

Beginning this week at the Sentry Tournament of Champions any player with an overall average of 45 second or more per stroke, based on ShotLink data, will be subject to a timing limit of 60 seconds. While the old policy was based on a group’s position to the rest of the field, the new rules allow officials with stopwatches to zero in on the slow at heart, regardless of whether their group is on pace or not.

The policy – which was scheduled to begin last spring at the RBC Heritage but was pushed back because of the COVID-19 pandemic – also allows officials to issue “excessive shot times” for any player who takes more than 120 seconds to hit a shot. We’re talking to you, Bryson.

A good test for this system will be to see whether J.B. gets ensnared in its web.  If not, we can reasonably consider it useless. 

Match-Play Madness - I love match-play and I love that we occasionally (well, once, in any event) have a week where the guys play something other than 72 holes of medal play.  Though, we should acknowledge two important factors.

First, it's an odd event that very rarely delivers that which we want.  Eighteen holes of golf is a coin flip at this elite level, and we very rarely see the kinds of match-ups that we crave.  Before the format change to pool play, I used to call it the upside-down tournament, because the best part was Wednesday and the worst is Sunday... But as for getting your hopes up for that DJ-JT Final, it hasn't tended to work out that way.  I therefore hope for a final match that's better than the iconic Steve Stricker-Pierre Fulke cage match...

The other bit to note is that, despite the upgrade in venue (a low bar, admittedly, when Dove Mountain is the basis of comparison), the current date is sub-optimal.  We've already seem the effect of this event on the Florida swing, but two weeks before The Masters is equally awkward.  Much better to play this in the chiller part of the schedule, when the effects are on events of generally lesser importance (a more important factor with The Players back in March).

Per Geoff, we have about as strong a field as is possible, given injuries and the Kung Foo Flu:

Always one of the best weeks of the year, the 2021 WGC Dell Match Play has lured a strong field

this year despite its proximity to the Masters. I wondered if we might see more defections not wanting to risk a COVID positive so close to the Masters. Particularly after a Players week scene produced three positive cases.

One of those players, Gary Woodland, is not playing, nor are other recently injured stars who qualified: Koepka, Rose and Woods.

64 of the top 69 are expected to play, including the recently banged-up Daniel Berger.  I mention Berger only because of the irony that, after his controversial non-invite to November's Masters, I had feared the irony of him missing this one due to injury.

Eamon Lynch has some harsh words for that format change I reference above:

Welcome to the only week of the year when the PGA Tour’s ardent free-marketeers develop a sudden appreciation for a safety net from the authorities. Specifically, the free passes issued for

the first round of the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, the day on which so many stars used to be dispatched early.

 Now Wednesday’s losers live to fight another day. I blame Hunter Mahan and Victor Dubuisson.

Since the WGC Match Play began in 1999, the Tour, its broadcast partners and fans have eagerly awaited a final that pits two heavyweights against each other. But match play is capricious, and what we’ve seen instead is an occasional heavyweight reach the Sunday showdown only to square off with a comparative middleweight (to be fair, some of those middleweights added heft to their résumés later).

But there have never been enough Tigers or Rorys in the final match to compensate for those times when fans had to subsist on a Kevin Sutherland or Scott McCarron.

 To his credit, Pierre Fulke's name comes up as well.  

This is a worthy issue about which I feel strongly as well, but it's a difficult issue with no easy answers.  As Eamon notes, Wednesday at this event used to be about as intense a day of golf as known to mankind.  Thirty-two lose-and-go-home matches was just almost more than a golf fan can take:

Golf geeks will remember (more fondly than TV executives, who were focused on ratings) the first-round massacres that once defined this tournament, the Wednesday slaying of a slew of superstars who barely had time to lace up their spikes before it was time to gas up their jets. Even Tiger wasn’t immune, ousted in his opening match by the unheralded Peter O’Malley in 2002 and by future Ryder Cup captain Thomas Bjorn a decade ago.

Match Play Wednesday was once among the most entertaining, knife-edge days in golf. It ought to be again. Viewers should not have to rely on Golf Channel’s estimable Steve Sands and his whiteboard to illustrate the various permutations that might see a player sent packing. It should be as obvious as W or L.

If you're mentioning Tiger takedowns, how does Nick O'Hern not draw a mention, given that he did it twice in three years.

But Eamon does acknowledge the very real issue of players not willing to go with the prospect of playing only one round, though I thin he gets the causality and effect wrong:

Granted, Melbourne is a long way from anywhere, but even subsequent venues in California and Arizona were too far for some guys to travel given the prospect of playing just one round. It took almost 15 years, but eventually the PGA Tour found a way to engineer star presence on Match Play weekend, something player performances had regularly failed to deliver.

I don't actually think this guarantees the show ponies are there on the weekend, it just gest them as far as Friday.  It just mitigates the one-and-done aspect, ensuring the player at least three rounds, though not full rounds necessarily.   

Eamon close with an apt analogy to March Madness, though there is a non-trivial difference in the nature of the games.  The problem in golf is that it takes so long to separate the field.

The TC gang did ultimately spare a thought for this event:

Next up: the always intriguing WGC-Dell Match Play. The match-play gods have empowered you to select any two players to meet in the finals. Who ya got?

Boy, at this early juncture I'm more focused on what intriguing match-ups might occur in pool play, along the lines of Spieth-Reed a couple of years ago.

Bastable: See above: DJ vs. Bryson would be a blast, on several levels, but for the sake of variety, I’ll go with a reprise of the Rory vs. Reed battle from the 2016 Ryder Cup. That duel remains the gold standard for fist-pumping, spine-tingling, roar-inducing match-play drama. A sequel, albeit in a slightly more subdued atmosphere, would be great fun.

It was all that, though really only for eight holes.

But my thoughts go another direction entirely.  If you're a middle or lower tier player, who would you want to be the top dog in your pod?  Gotta be Rory, no?  

Bamberger: Taking the question literally, Jack (1975 version) and Tiger (2000 edition.)

Jack won that match-up at the Old Course last summer....  seriously, that was the premise of the Open for the Ages nonsense.

Zak: Spieth vs. DeChambeau. I think most of the crowd would be on Jordan’s side, but forcing people to watch 18 holes of Bryson would help them learn a lot.

Dethier: Rory vs. Bryson. And then a rematch in the final pairing at Augusta National.

Colgan: This one’s a layup: Brooks vs. Bryson! The trash talk alone would leave Golf Twitter in flames. Honorable mention: Reed vs. Xander to settle the talk amongst the boys, once and for all.

A lay-up?  Given that one of those guys isn't able to play, it may not be as layuppy as he thinks...  Although I do like his undercard very much.  Not that there's any shortage of interesting Reed match-ups...  I'd like to see Reed v. Tom Watson, just to see if Patrick would be dropping his club behind his ball against St. Tom.

Bye-Bye, Brooksie - Doesn't sound encouraging at all:

Brooks Koepka had surgery on his right knee earlier this week and is undecided if he will

compete in the Masters in two weeks, he confirmed to Golfweek on Sunday night.

The world No. 12 has been benched since March 7, the day he announced his withdrawal from the Players Championship with what he described as a sprain suffered while with his family in Florida. Koepka offered a little more detail about the injury to Golfweek, writing in a text message that he suffered “a right knee cap dislocation and ligament damage.”

The surgery took place on Tuesday, March 16, in California. He is currently undergoing physical therapy on the West Coast as part of his recovery.

Asked how long the surgery lasted, Koepka replied: “Not sure. I was asleep.”

Even were he to play, it seems a stretch to think he could find any form.  Those hopes that the two Bruise Brothers might battle down the stretch will have to be deferred...

Our Rickie - Michael Bamberger is the perfect writer to tackle the enigma that is Rickie Fowler, for the simple reason that his basic decency will keep the piece from becoming maudlin.  But how does a skilled writer tackle this piece?  In his own inimitable fashion is the easy answer.  For instance, I'd have framed it using this 'graph from the middle of the piece:

On Sunday, he was in the first twosome of the day, off the 1st tee at 8:10 a.m., playing with Bronson Burgoon. Fowler had a couple dozen people following him. He was easy to find, in his white-and-orange ensemble. (The golfer as Creamsicle.) If you were a random fan watching Fowler at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, at the Players Championship and at the Honda, you would have never guessed his results (72nd, MC, 65th, respectively). He remains upbeat, accommodating, friendly. His fifth and most recent Tour win was at Phoenix, 25 months ago, when Johnny Miller worked his final tournament.

To me that's a poignant moment and I can almost hear Rickie saying, "I'm still big, it's just the pictures that got small".

But here's how an actual professional writer frames it:

On Monday morning, Rickie Fowler will try to win his fifth major.

Yes, his Wikipedia entry shows otherwise. It shows no majors. Wildly inaccurate.

Rick’s major wins: the 2015 Players Championship, plus the 2011, ’12 and ’13 Pro-Member event at Seminole Golf Club, played each year on the Monday after the Honda Classic.

Fowler has been winning all his life. He played on two winning U.S. Walker Cup teams, in 2007 and ’09. His captain on both occasions was Buddy Marucci. Marucci, a longtime Seminole member, plays each year with Fowler in the celebrated better-ball event. The Walker Cup, by the way, will be played at Seminole in May.

That's good as well...But I'm not entirely buy what Mike's peddling here:

For now, Fowler is not in the field for next month’s Masters. Not yet, anyway. He has played in 41 consecutive majors. He’s not in the field at this week’s WGC-Dell Match Play event in Austin. Next week, Fowler will play in the Texas Open, in San Antonio. If you win the week before the Masters, and you’re not otherwise in the field, you get the last invitation to Augusta. Jones, the Honda winner, has played in one Masters, in 2014. He got in that year by winning the Houston Open the week before. Jones’s Honda win gets him into next month’s Masters.

Fowler doesn’t seem to be sweating anything, and why should he? He’s 32 and healthy and has made more than $100 million on Tour and likely far more than that in off-course income. One of his more recent endorsement deals is with a company called Level Select CBD.

Let's not be silly.  He's sweating everything these days, and how could it be otherwise.  That he's maintain benefit of confirming why we liked him in the first place.   But the Alfred E. Newman, "What, me worry?"  No way.

Scenes From the Logo Wars - A fun story of golf's heavyweights duking it out.  It seems the nice folks at Pinehurst have come up with a logo for their Par-3 course called The Cradle, and a certain West Coast club thinks themselves the victim of intellectual property theft.  I'll just show you the two logos:

OK, I'm a little underwhelmed by the alleged similarities.  Yes, there's a human figure in each, and yes there's some sort of vegetation involved...  But beyond that, color me unmoved.

I do feel compelled to note that the Pinehurst logo obviously evokes the letter "C", and one assumes that it's Putter Boy on a scheduled work break.

But kids, aren't we burying the lede here.  Isn't the threshold issue that Pasatiempo logo?  C'mon, man, as our Potus would implore you, it's 2021 and you really need to get with the intersectionality of it all:

Please Don't Wear A Sombrero: What Cinco De Mayo Really Means, From A Mexican

This is how white supremacy works. It always begins with the taking — an entitled grabbing of the cultural symbols of others. A sombrero? A serape? A kimono? Cornrows? They're there for the seizing. And if such snatching is questioned — if we dare confront the audacity by which it plucks what isn't its own — then there is intimidation and terror.

White supremacy grabs and grabs — lands, people, continents, culture — for both power and hollow amusement.

And don't get me started on the fact that their golf course was designed by, gasp, a dead white guy...

I'm thinking that Pasatiempo should never have brought this up, especially since the world will assume their sombrero-wearing to be a member of the grounds staff.

Looks to be a nice warm week.  So, enjoy all, and I plan to be back Wednesday morning to tee up the match-play pairings.