Monday, March 8, 2021

Weekend Wrap

I have to begrudgingly admit that Florida has been delivering the goods... It may be an architectural Chernobyl, but we have been entertained.

Full Tilt Boogie - What's to say when the carnival side act dons the red cardigan?

ORLANDO — In golf, the long-drive scene has always been a sideshow. The guys who swing out of their shoes and grunt after impact and raise their arms like they hit a grand slam—they’re a fun
diversion. Something you flip on ESPN2 late-night, after a few beers, but a totally separate entity from the touring pros. “Happy Gilmore” is just a movie, after all.

Which brings us to the sixth tee at Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill Club and Lodge on Sunday afternoon, roughly 3 p.m. local time. Bryson DeChambeau—he of the protein shakes and the umpteen commercials and the U.S. Open romp—had (quite publicly) flirted with trying to drive the green on the par-5 all week. It would require sending a ball flying over water for at least 330 yards. Granted, a day earlier, he took a bold line on and launched a 370-yard bomb. But this was winning time. Tied for the lead at the Arnold Palmer Invitational with a man roughly his size but two decades older, would DeChambeau have the nerve to pull the trigger yet again on Sunday?

You needed only to see DeChambeau’s comportment as he strutted to the tee to know the answer: Hell, yes. He grabbed the driver. He started moving quickly. He discussed the carry with his caddie. He ramped up his breathing, preparing his body to pour every ounce of force it has into that poor little ball.

He had 88 yards in on the Par-5, which it's probably for the best that The King wasn't here to see it.

Did you catch that whiff of Winged Foot deja vu?

DeChambeau’s performance rang eerily similar to his six-shot victory at the U.S. Open last
September. Like Winged Foot, Bay Hill’s fairways were extremely narrow this week. Like Winged Foot, the rough was extremely penal. And like Winged Foot, DeChambeau’s length was a massive advantage, as he finished first in strokes gained/off the tee for the four days.

The field hit less than 60 percent of the fairways this week, and only around half on Sunday, when a steady 20-mph wind sent the scoring average soaring to 75.49. The conventional wisdom is that narrow fairways and long rough handcuff the bombers. But when they’re so narrow that everyone is missing them—advantage, Bryson.

“I was able to get a wedge out of the rough, whereas some people were hitting 7-irons or 6-irons back in the rough. And it’s kind of like the U.S. Open, I was able to dominate it a little bit the driving off the tee.”

It's an article of faith among many distance deniers that all we have to do is narrow fairways and grow the rough to reign in the long hitters, whereas that just reinforces their advantage.  Bryson actually hit 57% of his fairways, ranking 25th in that category, which works pretty well with his field-leading driving distance.  That link is it's own amusement, because he was all of .3 yards longer than Rory.  As usual, the devil is in the details, because you'll note that this covers all of eight drives for the week.  Why are they still using the archaic two measure drives in the ShotLink era?  I can't imagine, but the data is a tad difficult to interpret without knowing whether No. 6 was one of the measured holes.  All I know is that he outdrove Lee Westwood by a mere 168 yards there on Sunday...

Mike Bamberger is our go-to guy for an historical perspective, though this one has me shaking my head.  That said, Arnie was our acknowledged King, but there was this guy that never had any use for him:

Golf is slow to embrace different, which explains Ben Hogan’s indifference toward Arnold Palmer. You know, the Iceman practically wrote the book called Fairways and Greens, and then
Arnie showed up, all slashin’-’n-smashin.’ AP hit bombs and holed them, too.

“How’d he get in the tournament?” Hogan asked a lunch companion on a weekday in April in Eisenhower’s first term, with Arnold in earshot. Imagine that one on Twitter. Arnold heard it, there in the Augusta National grill room. “He never used my name,” Arnold told many people over the years. “It was always, ‘Fella.’”

Morning, fella.

Beat that for cold.

 Hey, I was more shocked that Hogan actually said "Good Morning"...

Mike's piece is at times a stretch, but there's some really good stuff in it.  For example, the famously tone-deaf Bryson offers Hogan some down-home wisdom:

Bryson’s dream foursome has five players in it, he said Sunday night. (There he goes again,
breaking the rules again.) Hogan, Arnold, Moe Norman, Bryson’s father and Bryson his own self. That’s five. For all of his reverence for Hogan, Bryson knows and accepts that Hogan couldn’t relate to Palmer’s style of play, and he knows there are people in the game that can’t relate to his style of golf.

“It happens every 20 years, in every sport,” Bryson said. “People come around that are changing things, and one generation can’t relate to the next.”

But what would you do, Bryson? What would you do if you were hanging with Hogan and Arnold? Could you broker a peace? And if so, how?

“I would say, ‘Relax, it’s just golf,’” the winner said. “That’s what everybody tells me. [But] I’m my own worst psychologist.”

He laughed. His new cardigan could barely contain him.

That's shockingly in perspective for a guy that thinks the job description of a Golf Channel cameraman is to protect his brand, and yet...  One is left with the sinking feeling that driving Par-5's is in fact, no longer golf.

 I also want to excerpt Mike's comments on Lee Westwood, who held up extremely well for an old guy, and whose reaction after his own effort on No. 6 was a highlight:

And what a pleasure it was to see Lee in Sunday’s final twosome, on this occasion trying his best to stay with DeChambeau, who outdrove him by half a football field, now and again. There were 5,000 fans on hand, most of them masked, most of them following the final twosome. When DeChambeau smashed a drive on the par-5 6th hole almost within spitting distance of the green, he raised his hands, Rocky-style. When Westwood followed, in spirit but not remotely in length, he raised his hands, too. He was having himself a good time, his girlfriend-caddie smiling beside him. He earned $1 million for finishing second. And that’s rounding it down.

Good stuff.  Brentley Romine, in his feature on that Saturday drive, captured these TrackMan readings:

• Carry: 347 yards
• Total distance: 370 yards
• Clubhead speed: 137 mph
• Ball speed: 196 mph
• Smash factor: 1.43
• Launch angle: 11.9 degrees
• Apex: 124 feet

So, time to see what that Tour Confidential panel made of it all, beginning here:

1. He’s baaack. On Sunday, Bryson DeChambeau picked up his first win since the U.S. Open (and eighth PGA Tour title overall), edging Lee Westwood by a stroke at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, at Bay Hill. We’ve seemingly already analyzed every inch of DeChambeau’s game, but there’s always more to unpack! What did you take away from Bryson’s latest power-packed performance?

Dylan Dethier: When there’s long rough and slippery greens and things are starting to look impossible, nobody is better suited to pummeling the golf tournament into submission than Bryson DeChambeau. On a day when the field averaged over 75, bogeys lurked around every corner and DeChambeau didn’t have his sharpest ball-striking, the guy made 12 consecutive pars to close this thing out.

Michael Bamberger: He putts great when he wins. As do they all.

Josh Sens: Dylan said it well. He hits it so far, and with the strength he has out of the rough, it really doesn’t matter all that much where it goes.

Sean Zak: My takeaway is that he’s able to dial things in pretty quick. A lot of golf fans were quick to write him off when he missed a bunch of fairways at Riviera. On Sunday, he was hoisting the trophy.

Mike is astute, as always, but it's that last bit from Sean that has me thinking.  To me, the set-up at Riviera mirrors Augusta far better than Bay Hill.   I like Bryson at Torrey more than I do at Augusta is my conclusion... But don't ask me about Kiawah, because there I'm at a loss.

This one doesn't go anywhere especially useful, but it is fun to think through:

2. In the third round, on the par-5 6th, Bryson DeChambeau took a stunning line off the tee that carried 344 yards (and a lot of water) — and all but melted Twitter. (DeChambeau’s Sunday blast at the 6th was also spectacular.) Is there another hole on the PGA Tour, including major venues, where DeChambeau’s distance can provide him such an overwhelming advantage?

Dethier: Well, now DeChambeau is talking about potentially taking his tee shot at 18 at TPC Sawgrass left of the water and flying it onto No. 9 to set up a better angle. (That would also mean an extremely long walk to his ball, but I digress.) When DeChambeau’s line left him 168 yards ahead of Lee Westwood despite his tee shot going only about 60 yards longer, I thought immediately of Dustin Johnson and Jordan Spieth in a playoff at the Northern Trust. Any massive cape hole where carrying it 320 gets you over a corner will give Bryson an advantage, but it’s hard to see any hole more obviously suited than No. 6.

Dylan works himself into a logical box canyon there, though he's onto something interesting.  I think the point is that, as good as that Glen Oaks example is, that perhaps he's misinterpreting.  I don't consider that a cape hole, because DJs line in that playoff wasn't used the entire week.  It's not the normal cape hole that's now in play, where the player just bites off another ten or twenty yards.  This is about entirely inconceivable lines, whether over trees or water, and they're impossible for those of us watching on TV to contemplate.

Bamberger: Absolutely. Just ask Augusta National: 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17 and 18.

Sens: All good calls. It will be fun to see how he plays 18 at Pebble next time he gets a crack at it.

Zak: No. 13 at Augusta remains tantalizing for him ever since the first round of the 2020 Masters.

Sure, Mike makes us laugh, but most of that laundry list are just holes where he hits it a bit longer.... The more interesting thing is to anticipate where he can fly trees and shorten holes, so I'm not really sure any but No. 13 offer that potential.  

I suppose this question is inevitable:

3. This is difficult to quantify, but how much impact do you think DeChambeau’s style of play is having on bringing fringe/non-golf fans to PGA Tour telecasts and the game at large?

Dethier: He’s a lightning rod for attention. There’s plenty of grumbling about the way DeChambeau does things, from his emotional reactions to the way he thanks his sponsors. But I think more people than that are fascinated to see how he approaches things and glad to see him in contention. One video shot from behind the 6th tee showed off the enthusiasm at the tournament. And another photo showed Jordan Spieth intrigued by DeChambeau’s Sunday approach. That says it all.

I think this is right, yet I still don't think there's much crossover affect.  I especially agree that capturing Jordan (and Rory earlier in the week) reacting is TV gold, as that's what tells us this is off the charts.

Bamberger: Totally a green. My young pal Max wants to know about Bryson. Max is a hockey kid. But he wants to know about Bryson.

Fun with auto-correct, eh Mike? 

Sens: It’s nothing close to the Tiger Effect. But he is the only other golfer my non-golf-playing friends have ever asked me about. He’s moving the needle, no doubt.

I think we continue to over-estimate that Tiger effect, as well, since all those new golfers he allegedly created disappeared.  At least until the pandemic, that is.

Zak: I think people love how polarizing he is. You’re in on Bryson or you’re out. More than any other pro. His actions on course aren’t always the most forgivable, and his immediate corporate shoutouts after the win aren’t a great look. But few pros alive are more fun to watch work their way through a final round.

It's not all bad for the game to have a villain... though Patrick could feel threatened.

Shall we spend a minute on our problem children?  First, this guy:

4. Jordan Spieth continued to show positive signs this week, notching his third top-5 finish in his past four starts. What one piece of his game is most preventing Spieth from turning these near-misses into wins?

Dethier: His driving. Simply put, Spieth needs to find a few more fairways. If he does that, he’ll have to pull off fewer of his trademark miracle shots to stay in contention — and he’ll be better suited to surviving cold days with his putter, like Sunday (when he actually drove it fairly well and putted quite poorly).

Bamberger: Nos. 64 to 72. It’s a process. I like where he’s trending. How can you not?

Sens: The tee ball. The putter can bail him out here and there when the big stick goes awry, but it can do so only for so long.

I agree that his driving is a huge issue, and it's a big part of why I've been a skeptic about his resurrections.   Not only does he miss a lot of fairways, but he has a tendency towards the off-the-planet miss... But in the present moment, he's a just a different guy on Sundays:

Zak: The Sunday shots. Everything is dropping for him on Saturdays right now. This may seem obvious and not enlightening, but he needs to hit one or two tight on a Sunday instead of grinding constantly. Make his job easier.

But perhaps this is the bigger enigma:

5. Rory McIlroy’s solid but not spectacular play (four top-20 finishes in five PGA Tour starts in 2021 but no wins) continued at Bay Hill. Starting the fourth round four strokes back, he made five bogeys and a double en route to a 76 that dropped him into a tie for 10th. “I don’t know what the word is or how to describe it, but just a little dejected,” McIlroy said after his round. “… Like, maybe looking to go in a new direction.” What do you read into McIlroy’s remarks?

That was quite the miraculous double after two balls in the water...

Dethier: As someone who gets kinda glum after a disappointing round of golf, McIlroy’s remarks hit home pretty hard with me. This was another frustrating Sunday, and he can’t seem to put it all together when it counts. I hope he finds the spark he’s looking for.

Bamberger: Needs to shake something up. But what can he shake up? It’s not his caddie, his swing, his clubs, his teacher. It’s something in him.

I really beg to differ with Mike, as the weaknesses in Rory's game are quite apparent.  It's become a bit of a fixation for your humble blogger, but the childhood best friend on the bag might be a good place to start.  Not only is Rory one of the worst putters out there, but I've long believed he's one of the worst readers of greens, as no player misses as many short putts as badly as Rory does.   

That said, once I saw the wind they played in Sunday, I knew Rory was toast.

Sens: The issue seems to be 90 percent mental, and 10 percent mental. Having just spent a bit of time with Dustin Johnson, who shakes off disappointment maybe better than anyone who has ever played the game, I can’t help but wonder whether McIlroy would benefit from trying to mimic DJ’s impassive body language. When Rory is going well, he has that boyish bounce in his step. The opposite is true when he starts to sputter. You can see the glumness in his movements. It might feel unnatural for Rory to try the stoic approach at first. But you know, fake it til you make it.

DJ is a perfect model, but nothing to do with body language.  DJ realized he had an issue with wedge distance control, and he dialed it in through effort.  I assume that Rory, whose distance control with his wedges is far worse than DJs was, can't be bothered... 

But this might be the most Rory answer ever:

Zak: Those remarks sound like a lack of self belief, which isn’t great! He’s still one of the three best players post-Tiger and showed classic Rory flash on Thursday. Is that close to winning? Eh. Probably not. But not too far either.

Yes, by virtue of it being Thursday, that 66 was classic Rory.... He's got two modes... get out to a quick start and fade.  or, in the alternative, stink up the joint on Thursday and then claw your way to a back door Top Ten.  The only drama is which pattern he'll use at Augusta, though I'll go with the latter.

A fun week for sure, though there were a couple of things I really didn't like.  I mean, I really didn't like them.  First, the Arnold Palmer Invitational is an enhanced event in the PGA Tour Hierarchy, offering the winner a longer exemption and more FedEx Cup points.  Given that enhanced status, is it strictly necessary to turn it into a clown show?

Robert Gamez shot a nightmare 92(!) at Bay Hill, and the details will make you nauseous

More nauseous than the fact that Robert Gamez was in the field?

Gamez shot a 20-over 92 that included one triple bogey and five double bogeys. It was easily the highest score of his career, surpassing an 85 he recorded in the opening round of the Legends Reno-Tahoe Open (now the Barracuda Championship).

After opening with a 79 on Thursday, Gamez, who last played full-time on the tour in 2008, struggled right from the start in the second round, making bogey on the opening hole before three-putting for double on the par-3 second. He then bogeyed each of his next three holes before finding water off the tee on the par-5 sixth, where he went on to make double. His lone par came on the par-3 seventh before another bogey on the eighth and a double on the ninth to turn in 47.

Still, Gamez, who was the tour’s Rookie of the Year in 1990 and holds the record for longest gap between victories —15 years, 6 months after winning the Valero Texas Open in 2005—pressed on.

He tripled the par-11th after hitting his third shot into the water then doubled the par-5 12th. Another bogey followed on the par-3 14th before he made double from the middle of the fairway and 165 yards out on 15. After pars on Nos. 16 and 17, Gamez was forced to lay up from the rough on 18 and went on to make one more bogey.

Overall, he hit just three greens in regulation and six fairways.

So, why was he in the field?

Playing this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational on past champion status

OK, I do think it's appropriate to allow recent champions to play?  What?  That's quite a long time ago, no?

More than 30 years ago, Robert Gamez produced one of the most iconic shots in Bay Hill history when the then-21-year-old rookie holed out for eagle from the 18th fairway to beat Greg Norman by a stroke and win the 1990 Nestle Invitational (now Arnold Palmer Invitational). A plaque marks the spot from where Gamez hit 7-iron from 176 yards, and the victory would be a high point in a career that spanned nearly three decades and included three wins.

But they wouldn't let him in the field if he didn't still have game?  What? Oh yeah, 2008.  Well, that seems like yesterday....

And get a load of this from Golfweek's account:

In case you missed it, Robert Gamez posted a 92 on Friday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and then got disqualified.

 Got disqualified?  Just something that was done to him?  Yeah, not so much...

After his round on Friday, Gamez, 52, was DQ’d because he didn’t sign his scorecard.

You take up a precious spot in the field, make a fool of yourself and then it's too much to ask that you actually submit your card to memorialize your buffoonery.

Why does the Tour allow this nonsense?  I know everyone wants to be the Masters, but the irony is that this accomplishes just the opposite.  You want to be major, but that path never runs through Robert Gamez....  Exit question: Will he be invited next year?

Now that I've ratcheted the crankiness to 11, did you catch what they did on Saturday?  Our PGA Tour seems extremely uncomfortable with the rules of golf:

This week in the PGA Tour’s assault on play it as it lies was busier than most!

 We start in reverse order with round three of the 2021 Arnold Palmer Invitational where preferred lies (lift, clean, place) were invoked due to “anticipated wet conditions.”

The same golf course that was turning crispy Friday afternoon is apparently going to require preferred lies Saturday afternoon. The forecast does call for rain but as of 1:05 pm ET the drops had not fallen.**

A similar precog approach happened at Pebble Beach earlier this year. The AT&T is spread over two courses and equity was the goal for players spread between Spyglass and Pebble over the opening two rounds.

But the API is played at just one golf course, the conditioning has been raved about and did I mention rain had not fallen yet?

Social justice warriors have now set their sights on mudballs... Seriously, have we lost our collective minds?   Jay, maybe you can find a nice bubble for your delicate flowers to play in, because it's pretty hostile out there what with weather and all...

Geoff has a couple of videos I'll share as well.  I think it's great that PGA Tour professionals are willing to help with the landscaping efforts at their venues:

Anyone recognize the hand?

Yes, that would be PReed on Thursday, a man that takes personal responsibility for the quality of his lie.  

 This guy nailed it, didn't he?


These kids today are all about equity....If you're going to allow a player to improve his lies with impunity, isn't this the logical result?  What's maddening is that they seemingly can't see the obvious results of their failure to enforce basic standards.

This is pretty crazy as well:

Nothing to see here... How's that bubble coming along?

One last bit, and this time I think I mean it.  We've covered poor Rickie's fall from grace.  But the hits keep on coming:

I actually feel sorry for the guy.  

Yanks Rule -  The venue might have been a joke, but this performance was anything but:

Austin Ernst led by just one stroke after 54 holes, but there was little drama on Sunday evening. Ernst closed with a two-under 70 at the Golden Ocala Golf & Equestrian Club in Ocala, Fla., to
win the LPGA Drive On Championship and cruise to her third LPGA Tour title.

Ernst finished her round with five straight pars to finish 15 under overall and beat runner-up Jennifer Kupcho by five. Kupcho, who shot 74 on Sunday, entered the day one off the lead but couldn’t catch Ernst on Sunday.

“I don’t know what golf course Austin is playing to be honest with you,” joked Danielle Kang, who tied for 6th.

She ran away and hid early... Americans have now won the first three LPGA events, unheard of dominance in the Koreatown of women's golf.  Of course, this is the first of the three no named Korda...

 As I ranted on Friday, these replica holes are just profoundly silly, which Beth Ann Nichols fails to grasp:

Golden Ocala's replica holes might look familiar, but aren't set up quite like the Masters

So then, the point would be what exactly?

The par-5 12th (patterned after the 13th at Augusta) hasn’t been reachable for most either. Jennifer Kupcho famously stuffed a hybrid to 6 feet en route to her ANWA victory. She’s been laying up every day this week.

“It’s kind of hard with my length to go for it this week,” said Kupcho. “The area around the greens and the greens being so hard it’s really hard to justify chipping when I could hit a wedge shot.”

Thereby robbing the hole of any drama or interest...  

I was actually relived when they played that first amateur event at ANGC.  Having seen the ladies laying up in Ocala a few years back, I was worried there would be no drama for Kupcho et. al.  But the Lords of Augusta got it right, allowing it to play roughly how it does for the men.... as witnessed by Kupcho's eagle.  So, you might wonder, are the folks in Ocala or those that run the LPGA that dense?  It's hard to draw any other conclusion....

Ponte Vedra Musings - Questions I never thought I'd ask... can Sawgrass live up to The Concession and Bay Hill?  Shall we start our controlled descent?

First up is a dream pairing.  The analytical and insightful Shane Ryan paired with.... well, Mark Broadie, which leads to the conclusion that I used the adjective "analytical" prematurely.  Anyway, I think you know how this come out, but it's worth the trip:

Players 2021: Is the 17th at TPC Sawgrass really that much tougher than other par 3s? These numbers provide an answer

I haven't read yet past the first couple of 'graphs, but I would almost guarantee that the hardest of the four is No. 8, counter-intuitively the only one without water.  

But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. First, we reached out to Luis Rivera at the PGA Tour, who provided us with some useful data. According to Rivera, from 1983 to 2019, players averaged a
3.12 at 17 (or, if you’re a sadist, 1,771 over par across a 37-year stretch). Unlike what you might expect on many par 5s on tour, players haven’t really gotten better over time at 17, and there have only been five years (1987, 1994, 1996, 1997 and 2014) when the collective average was under par. It has ranked as the eighth-hardest hole on the course since 2003, though it boasts the most triple bogeys or worse. Players are equally likely to make birdie (17 percent) as they have been bogey or worse (18 percent) in that time, and while it has the second-highest greens-in-regulation number of any hole at Sawgrass (79.7 percent), it has the toughest scrambling percentage … which makes sense since it’s not easy to scramble from the bottom of a lake. Meanwhile, there have only been nine aces on the hole since 1983, and Fred Couples (1997) is the only one to do it in the final round.

The only place one can get up-and-down from is that front pot bunker...  But this is a hole where one makes three or five, but not many fours...

Surprisingly, at least to me, they compare it to other Par-3s on tour more than to the other Par-3s at Sawgrass... It's an easy three, except when it isn't.

This I suspect will be interesting:

Players 2021: The 8 most underrated shots at TPC Sawgrass

he starts with the opening drive, though doesn't touch on why it's so hard to find that fairway.  This one is is an important shot as well, I'm just not sure it's actually under-rated:

The approach at the par-4 fourth

A precision hole in every sense, the second shot into the fourth is set up by a controlled drive to the narrowest landing area at TPC Sawgrass. Those who find the fairway face a vital scoring opportunity with a short approach to a small green set across a canal, especially when the hole is cut in the bowl on the left or left-front. With that location, players can spin wedge shots off the slope for kick-in birdies and the occasional eagle.

Like all things at Sawgrass, this is tricky for sure.  Until, that is, you miss the fairway, when it becomes pucker-worthy.

I might have agreed more with this one pre-Bryson

The drive on the par-4 fifth

The tee shot at one of the most historically difficult par 4s on the course is played at a left-to-right angle across water to an elevated landing area. The line of attack is everything—drives played too conservatively risk running through the fairway into rough or a deep bunker, while weak drives to the right can find a waste area or, worse, the water. Only smoked drives moving with the shape of the hole will find the downslope that propels balls into a level spot.

They're sending it to such an extent that I'm not sure hitting the fairway matters so much.  And I can't remember a ball in the water any time recently...

I happen to think this is quite the collection of Par-5's, and for mere mortals I would nominate the second shot on No 2.  Not for these guys, because the angles don't impact them, but this is an interesting shot for sure:

The second shot at the par-5 ninth

Tour pros typically attack par 5s with little fear, but the second shot at the ninth continues to thwart normal expectations of birdie. The green is tucked to the left behind a bending line of mature oaks, forcing second shots to either go over the trees, be slung around them or even laid up back in the fairway. There’s no room for error because getting up and down from the four bunkers and deep hollows of rough surrounding the tiny, sloping green is anything but automatic.

You could say the same thing about Nos. 11 and 16...  In fact he does about the former.  But I'd add No. 16 with its strategically located tree...

Just one last bit today, though we'll have much more as the week progresses.  But this guy really got screwed, such that I could make the case that we should pick up where we left off:

It was arguably the greatest round in history that no one remembers. Or at least the best one that
didn’t count.

When Hideki Matsuyama rolled in a 25-foot eagle putt on the par-5 ninth—his final hole of the day—last March at TPC Sawgrass, he matched the course record with a spectacular nine-under 63, becoming the ninth golfer in Players Championship history to card that number.

Less than 12 hours later, it was officially wiped out.

Just after 10 that evening, the Players and the three tournaments scheduled for the following weeks were canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The announcement came a day after the NBA suspended its season, the NCAA canceled its men’s and women’s basketball tournaments and as cases of coronavirus had begun to take what would be a deadly grip on the country and the world.

Do it again, Hideki.... Adam Scott once famous won a 36-hole event at Riviera, so why not award Hideki  the "W'?  I'm kidding...at least I think I'm kidding.

Should be a nice warm week... We'll have lots more as the week progresses.

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