Friday, April 2, 2021

Late-Week Lamentations

I watched more baseball than golf yesterday...  Yeah, didn't work out well at all.

It's Ladies Week in golf, so we'll lead with the girl-on-girl stuff.

Dinah Doings - The moral equivalent of the Tour Confidential panel's Tiger obsession might be this summary of yesterday's action at the Dinah Colgate Palmolive ANA, which had this as the first of their three highlights:

1. Michelle Wie West in contention

Michelle Wie West has not made a start in a major championship since 2019, but you’d never know it looking at the leaderboard after Round 1. She made four birdies and just two bogeys during the opening round on Thursday, and she finds herself T16 going into Friday.

Wie West’s round was a clinic in scrambling as she put herself in some “pretty interesting spots” throughout the morning. Despite some loose ball striking she was able to scramble her way to an excellent start to the 2021 major season.

When your lede focuses on a player that's T16, you might want to reassess your journalistic standards.  Zephyr Melton helpfully offers a link to this deeper dive on The Big Wiesy's round, also written by a guy using Zephyr Melton as his nom de plume, which includes this unflattering comparison:

Wie West made her first start in this event 18 years ago, at the green age of 13. She finished T9. Since then, she’s become a major champion. She’s won five times on the LPGA Tour. She’s taken a leave of absence from the game. And now she’s returned.

That ability to grind has been consistent throughout.

“I have to say today was a bit like when I was 13: I kind of hit it all over the place,” Wie West said. “But that feels good. I think that’s kind of how I play.”

Not sure you want to go there, because she was a far better player in her early teens than as a fully-formed adult.

 Though Zephyr gets way too far out over his skis with this bit:

Conditions are only expected to get tougher as the week progresses with highs for the weekend getting into triple digits. That grind-it out-attitude will be necessary if she hopes to make her first jump into Poppie’s Pond on Sunday.

What, no hydration suggestions?  I mean, if you're in full cheerleading mode.  But here's that weather forecast, which is actually no joke:

Mebbe, but isn't that water approaching 90 degrees as well?

You've likely never heard of the leader, though you should have heard of this gal, just not, yanno, recently:

Shanshan Feng’s offseason began pre-pandemic, her last LPGA event the CME Group Tour
Championship in November 2019. It did not end until Thursday morning, a 16-month hiatus, and it ended impressively bordering on spectacularly.

Feng, a winner of 10 LPGA events including the 2012 LPGA Championship, shot a bogey-free five-under-par 67 in the ANA Inspiration and held the first-round lead for awhile until Patty Tavatanakit checked in with a 66.

“I was kind of nervous last night,” Feng said, “but I said to myself, ‘Hey, it's OK. Think about you're just an old rookie. Everything is new for you here and just have no expectation. Try your hardest, 100 percent on every shot, and enjoy the process.’

Though I think you'll agree that Shanshan's lockdown sounds remarkably like our own:

It provided a small measure of excitement to a life that by her admission had become increasingly boring. When she arose each morning, she began thinking about breakfast, she said. “After breakfast, I started thinking about lunch. After lunch I started thinking about dinner.”

That's a professional athlete!  I don't know is she's actually worked with Bob Rotella, but that myopic focus on the meal at hand is right out of his book, and note how she doesn't get distracted by lunch until breakfast is behind her.... 

This profile of a recent major winner checks all the boxes:

If you watch Sophia Popov walk the grounds of Mission Hills Country Club, she looks right at home. She walks with confidence. She hits the ball with confidence, too. When she frames her go-to fade against the picturesque mountain background, the fact that she’s a major champion
makes sense. She looks like she belongs.

Not too long ago though, Popov didn’t belong. Or at least, she wasn’t allowed.

Despite her improbable Women’s Open Championship victory last summer, Popov didn’t garner an invite to the 2020 edition of the ANA Inspiration. But she’s used to not being able to compete at golf’s first major — that was hardly the first time she’d been on the outside looking in at Mission Hills.

“I’ve been here a couple times to watch,” Popov told GOLF.com. “I’ve been here as an alternate and as a fan, so it’s nice to finally get to play in the event.”

At last, she belongs.

She belongs?  That's some seriously hackneyed journalism there, almost like a Lee Elder Masters Mad Lib.  I was beating the drum to get her into the field last year, but it was never more than a bureaucratic  snafu.  Sophia shot a useful 70 (-2) yesterday, so that would seem to settle the issue of whether she belongs...

This profile is the more interesting one, at least given my grudge against the Lords of Augusta:

When Aline Krauter sunk her par putt on the 18th green at West Lancashire to win the Women’s
Amateur last summer, the world of golf was suddenly at her fingertips.

Exemptions into the AIG Women’s Open, the U.S. Women’s Open and The Evian Championship were among her spoils. The the sweetest of them all though, at least for an amateur golfer like herself, was an invitation to the Augusta National Women’s Amateur.

Krauter didn’t accept the invitation. Despite holding onto the golden ticket of women’s amateur golf, the Stanford junior has instead opted to set her sights a bit higher and compete with the best players in the world at this week’s ANA Inspiration.

“It was definitely not an easy decision,” Krauter told GOLF.com. “But I definitely didn’t want to pass up an opportunity to play a pro event and I’m super excited to be here.”

The crime is that the adults forced this Sophie's Choice upon her.  Krauter shot a +1 73 yesterday, which has her hovering at the cut line.   

Mike Whan is on his victory lap, and it's in great part well-deserved.  If you sense a "but" coming, your instincts remain above reproach, as late-term Whan hasn't been as strong (see Popov, Sophia).  A few bits of interest from this item on Whan's exit interviews:

“I think the coolest thing about this,” he said, noting he had just run into Shirley Spork, one of the LPGA’s founders, “the thing that Shirley and the rest would be most proud of is what we’ve done for the future. The future of this game is so female, not just here in America, but all around the world. Events like this are what matter to young girls.

Silly me, I was hoping the future of the game would be coeducational... was that wrong of me?  Admittedly, when he puts it this way, it's not as off-putting:

“I don’t think, if you said 12 years ago to anybody, the future of the game, junior golf, was going to look almost 40 percent female, back when we were in that 13-, 14-, 15-percent range. This is important. We’re leaving this game pretty female. I’m leaving this game a lot more female than when I got here, thanks to a lot of people that made me look good.

“I don’t think these women will have daughters that will have the experience my mom had trying to join the game in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. They should be proud of that, and we should be proud of that.”

It's all good, though this bit sure made me laugh, given that it's the one week on the calendar when unity among the Five Families might actually be helpful, as per this discussion with Louise Suggs:

“I knew what she meant. It wasn't courses and purses and TV, but all of them. She said give them a better place to be. Care about the future. It caught me off guard. As a brand new commissioner in 2009, I’m like, What do you mean? She said, ‘We have a tour today because we cared about
the founders.’ Make them care about the future.’

“She said, ‘Get the boys involved.’ What do you mean get the boys involved? ‘You know, the boys. The guys that run all the boys’ stuff.’ What are you talking about?”

Suggs was talking about the PGA Tour, the PGA of America, the USGA, the R&A. “She called them the boys,” Whan said. “‘Get the boys involved. They’ll help.’

“If you think about it, KPMG, PGA, U.S. Women’s Open, LPGA, USGA, Girls Golf, the European Tour, I really think the boys, as she called them, are involved.”

The boys are involved, how's that working out for you?  You can interpret this any way you want, but it's hard to give Mike any credit here when on his watch Augusta National big-footed his premiere event.  And Mike's defense isn't very helpful, because it acknowledges that the men can step all over the women and there's precious little he can do about it....   

Of course, events of the recent past would lead to a conclusion that Mike's tactical blunder was in failing to pay the identity victim card.  The obvious play would have been to call out the Lords of Augusta for misogyny when it was first announced, though Mike might have been already in what-comes-next mode.

Augusta Bound - Sounds like a pretty dramatic finish to the prelims:

Surviving the toughest cut in golf: Maja Stark's playoff birdie sends her to Augusta National

Smith, a fifth-year senior at the University of Nebraska, was at 4 under and had a three-shot lead when the first round of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur was suspended because of weather. She had only played 11 holes.

When Smith returned on Thursday morning to finish, the temperature had dipped below 50 degrees. She played her remaining seven holes in 4 over. Shortly after lunch, she was back on the first tee for her second round and slowly slipped down the leaderboard. When Smith three-putted the 17th green, it moved the 36-hole cut from 6 over to 7 over.

Smith landed in a playoff with four other women – Maja Stark, Lauren Hartlage, Amari Avery and Yu-Sang Hou – that ended quickly when Stark dropped an 18-footer for birdie on the No. 10, the first extra hole.

Why that final round is limited to only 30 players is another question that never gets asked....  Though all the girls do get to play the course today in a practice round.

 Rose Zhang, who figured to be the class of the field, is tied for the lead at -1.  

Alamo Antics - Nothing here of interest to me, except when Phil does Phil-like things:

Between a pair of penalties and some rough bounces, Mickelson tied his second-highest score on
a PGA Tour hole, finishing with a 10 and ending the day at 79.

The par-5 closing hole at TPC San Antonio’s Oaks Course has a creek that runs along the right side of the green and down through the fairway. Mickelson, who bombed a drive 306 yards into a perfect position, tried to reach the green in two, but just missed as his ball bounced into the creek.

And that was just the beginning.

So, if that's not Phil enough for you, submitted for your approval:

After taking a penalty, Mickelson’s fourth shot came up short and rolled back into the rough below the green. His fifth failed to get on the green as did his sixth. His seventh shot hit the rock facade and rolled back behind him into a hazard. Another penalty ensued and Mickelson then ran one to the back of the green.

In typical Phil fashion, he then buried a tricky 15-foot putt to make 10.

Watch it for sure, as the description above doesn't do it justice:

On the bright side, he'll get to Augusta earlier.... 

Masters Stuff -  Because you've been asking yourself whether DJ does haute suisine:


I never saw pigs-in-blanket coming, but do they know to get the Hebrew National version in Georgia?

The actual funniest bit might be the peach cobbler, because that was a noted Clifford Roberts obsession.

We'll file this under "News You Can Use":

Masters 2021: How to win a green jacket in seven simple steps

This reminds me of Steve Martin's bit on how to be a millionaire:

You.. can be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes! You can be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes! You say.. “Steve.. how can I be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes?” First.. get a million dollars.

 The how to not pay taxes bit is equally good, but you're on your own there.

You need momentum

Augusta National is no analgesic; players can’t roll into Georgia cold. Five of the last seven winners won at least one event in the preceding two months to the Masters. Slightly change the parameters of momentum—subtract the victory requirement for multiple top-15s in a player’s five starts leading up to Augusta—and the list is expansive: 10 of the last 11 champions, and 15 of the past 18, fit the billing. Make it three top-15s and the list barely changes, with Danny Willett the lone exception from the past nine years.

Viewing this data through another prism, only two players came out of the woodwork to claim their share of immortality since 2003: Angel Cabrera (previous five tournaments: MC-MC-T32-T33-T13) and Trevor Immelman (MC-T40-T48-T65-MC). Charl Schwartzel, the 2011 champ, wasn't lighting the world on fire, although he did begin the year with three consecutive top eights, including a win at the Sunshine Tour's Joburg Open.

Here's a Pro Tip: If you're citing a Sunshine Tour event in a Masters preview, you've probably taken a wrong turn or two...

Keep big numbers at bay

Three. That’s how many double bogeys eventual winners have made, combined, this century during their championship runs. We’ll save you the time: Jordan Spieth at the 17th in Round 3,
Immelman at the 16th in Round 4, Mickelson (2004) also at the 16th in Round 1. To find a winner recording multiple doubles in a week we have to go all the way back to 1982 in Craig Stadler. And should a player mark down an eight, best to just pack it in: No winner has ever made worse than a seven over 72 holes.

We know. “Avoid trainwrecks” is not exactly a profound realization. But the results back it up.

Let me see if I follow.  In an event where low score winds, you're recommending the avoidance of big numbers?   I do hope you haven't shared this with anyone else...

Also, quite the hurtful phot, but inquiring minds need to know:  Was that Jordan's first or second drop?  Too soon?

Anyway, for those wagering a shekel or two, you might find a glimmer or two of insight, though his thoughts seem more appropriate to the post hoc forensics than to pre-tourney picks.

This item can't be filed in the same folder, because you and I will never get the call:

Masters 2021: What it's like to play Augusta National as a guest

This opening bit might surprise some though: 

I'm gonna shimmy way out on a limb and guess that it didn't suck.  Who knows, might be ,my first golf prediction that pans out...

The thing that surprised me most about this article was how friendly the club feels to visitors.
Nearly everyone I interviewed said the same thing. Augusta National may not welcome publicity, but it’s very good at welcoming the guests of its members.

One recent visitor told me: "The first hour, I kept thinking, I just hope I don't get thrown out." But the staff and the club's members were universally warm and welcoming, he said. "At some clubs, the members give off an attitude like, 'WTF are you doing here?' " said another guest. "At Augusta, they know what 'guest' means."

Duh!  Think about who the members are, and then think about who their friends might be....   

The full piece can be read in its entirety here, though it should come with a reader warning, Consumption of the Contents Herein will result in a serious Augusta Jones.

The most interesting pre-Masters reading might be this that will surprise many:

Augusta National planned to build a ‘Ladies Course.’ Here’s what happened

They're not quite the racists and misogynists you've been lead to believe.... Here's the deep background:

THE ORIGINAL VISION

In 1931, when Grand Slam winner Bobby Jones and New York City stockbroker Clifford Roberts founded Augusta National, they envisioned a massive, national club. David Owen lays this out in

The clubhouse that was never built.
his book on Augusta, The Making of the Masters: They planned to sign up 1,800 members, whose dues would help fund the MacKenzie-designed “championship course.”

Surely, Roberts figured, the attraction of the generation’s greatest golfer would be enough to entice interest from around the country. Jones, who spent most of his days as a lawyer in Atlanta, wanted a quiet place to play. According to Owen, the pair modeled their development after Marion Hollins’ work at Pasatiempo, down to hiring the same landscape architecture firm, the Olmsted Bros., to sketch out plans.

The vision was ambitious. Money from committed members would cover the course as well as tennis courts, squash courts, an 18-hole short course and a riding path. They’d revamp the clubhouse. They’d construct a hotel. Members would build houses around the perimeter.

Oh, and they’d design a ladies course, too.

 Of course that requires an understanding of what a Ladies Course was back in the day:

THE LADIES’ COURSE

What does it mean to be a “ladies’ course?” More to the point, what did it mean in 1930?

As it turns out, by the time Alister MacKenzie was sketching out the routing for Augusta National, there was already a decades-old tradition of courses built for women. In Scotland,
The Himalayas are still a hoot.
England and Ireland, ladies’ courses were built to complement their “championship” counterparts. These courses came in different shapes and sizes but they were generally short, clever and playable — though their specific characteristics varied widely, ranging from elaborate putting courses to 18-hole layouts that test players to this day.

The oldest ladies’ course was most likely developed at Scottish club North Berwick in 1867. (It still exists, now called the “Children’s Course.) Just south of St. Andrews, James Braid designed Lundin Ladies, a 2300-yard par-34 that featured Stonehenge-style stones on its second hole and retains its female-only membership to this day (men can play as guests). At Sunningdale Heath, Harry Colt built a 3700-yard par-60 that visitors can still play (at a bargain price, too!).

Other ladies’ courses followed, like those at Perth, Dunbar and Troon. Carnoustie added one too, something resembling a modern par-3 course. Formby Ladies Club, which boasts 350 members and features its own clubhouse, equipment and business plan, earned this description from Links Magazine just three years ago:

 “The ladies’ course is encircled by the big course. It’s short but notoriously challenging: a man competing in a senior tournament once said, ‘You told me it was 5,300 yards long. You didn’t tell me it was one yard wide.’”

Around the same time at the opening at North Berwick, St. Andrews installed its giant putting green, “The Himalayas,” so that the wives of R&A members could pre-occupy themselves while their husbands played golf. Thus the The Ladies Putting Club of St. Andrews was born.

Employee No. 2 and I well remember that Formby Ladies Club course, and we've amused ourselves at The Himalyas as well.

 I know I'm going long with this item, but it's good stuff:

AUGUSTA’S LADIES’ COURSE

At Augusta National, the ladies’ course — like the championship course — would certainly have taken cues from its U.K. equivalents. But it’s also likely that this ladies’ course would have had
Jones and Paul Runyan crossing the bridge on No. 3 in 1934.
American influence. That’s because it would have been overseen by Marion Hollins, who had won the Women’s Amateur, helped found Cypress Point Club and was the chief visionary for Women’s National Golf & Tennis Club in Glen Head, N.Y. The latter was a Long Island club (where men were welcome to play as guests, but only women could become members) developed as a female equivalent to The Creek Club down the road. Under Hollins’ watchful eye, a ladies’ club would hardly have been an afterthought.

Where would Augusta’s ladies course have fallen on this spectrum? It’s hard to say. Owen wrote this for the New Yorker: “As soon as their new club’s membership had passed a thousand, Jones and Roberts decided, they would build a second course, which, like Hollins’s Women’s National, would be geared specifically to women.” That implies a commitment to the second course as a respected standalone entity.

But because the club never threatened 1,000 members in its recruitment, we never got to see it. And while MacKenzie did release plans for an 18-hole, 2460-yard short course (with holes ranging from 60 to 190 yards) plans for the separate ladies’ course were never finalized. They were certainly never completed.

Astute observers might be puzzled by that photo caption, since water is not evident on the third hole these days.   But in 1934 the nines were reversed, so this is the what we know as the 12th hole.

I personally am more fascinated by the Mackenzie short course design, which looks far superior to what they eventually built.

As I hinted on Wednesday, Masters blogging will inevitably be affected by a last minute trip Madam and I have planned.  On Sunday we are headed to Kiawah Island for five days, returning home Friday morning.  As of this moment, I am planning to bring my laptop, though that's subject to change once I see how over-packed we might be.  I'm not promising anything, but do check back as I suspect I'll have plenty of time to cover things given that our last minute tee times tend to be on the late side.

Of course, the Kiawah refresher course (we were there in 2011, though that was in pre-blog times) is timely, as the golf world is headed there a mere month after we depart.  We'll obviously see how the track looks and whether it figures to withstand the aerial assault of the Bryson generation.

One last Masters bit, a time suck of potentially epic proportions for golf nerds.  Augusta is one-off in architectural terms, with money to burn and the ability to acquire adjacent properties as needed.  But Ron Witten ensures I wont see much daylight with his interactive guide to all changes to the ANGC course.

We'll just cover the one hole, but the one where the most significant shot in Masters history took place.  Excepting for the fact that the most famous shot in Masters history took place at event called The Augusta National Invitational:


That certainly harshes the narrative.... We'll skip forward and pick up the infamous Hootie trees:


Quick Hits - Just a couple of minor bits and then I'll discharge you to begin your week.

Who do these a******es think they are, Tim Finchem?

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said Wednesday the cause of Tiger Woods’ February car crash has been determined and the investigation has concluded, but he needs Woods’ permission to release the report.

California law restricts access to full crash reports to only certain involved parties.

Woods, who suffered broken bones in his right leg, announced March 16 on Twitter that he was back home. Woods’ agent, Mark Steinberg, didn’t return a message from USA TODAY Sports seeking comment.

Villanueva also said he still considers the single-car crash to have been an “accident” despite evidence that suggests the famed golfer didn’t brake or steer out of the emergency for nearly 400 feet after striking an eight-inch curb in the median.

Where have all those faux whistleblowers gone since January 20th?  But the LA Sheriff adhering to PGA Tour disclosure policies isn't too annoying...

Maybe Not Just Yet - I was all for him being added to that 2018 team:

Ryder Cup stock watch: Is it time to pencil Kevin Kisner on the U.S. team?

In September, Wisconsin native Steve Stricker will captain the United States side in his home state as the Americans try to take back the Ryder Cup from Europe, led by Padraig Harrington, at Whistling Straits. Billy Horschel put together quite the audition tape to make that team this past week at the Pete Dye layout (note: Whistling Straits is a Dye course, too), where he went 6-1-0 en route to the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play title.

The question, then, is just how much weight should we put into the lone match-play event we’ll see between now and the matches in September? Will Horschel’s victory—and, for that matter, the strong showings from runner-up Scottie Scheffler and third-place finisher Matt Kuchar—make a lasting impact on Stricker, or will it fade from memory with each passing month?

It should be a factor, but not the biggest one.  It's still golf, and the obvious point to make is that Kisner needs to play better than he has recently.  He's currently No. 18 on the list, and he'll simply have to be lower than that on selection day.  he could get picked for the reasons we're discussing if he's higher than 12th, but that would depend on how much higher and who specifically is above him on the list.   

This will be ne of the major plot lines of the summer, especially since Captain Stricker has (for reasons that aren't at all clear) six picks, in lieu of the usual 3-4.

Here's more news you can use.  The C&C boys inform us that there's only two things necessary to create a great golf course:

Bunkering

When it comes to what Crenshaw looks for in a great golf course, he made no hesitations, saying

that placement of bunkers was near the top of the list. The bunkering of a course can give players a sense of the signature of the architect who built the course.

“That stamp of individuality comes from the look of the bunkers,” Crenshaw said. “No one is ever going to think of Winged Foot without thinking of its bunkers. … The bunkers are just beautiful there. It’s part of a personality of a place.”

Does it look natural?

According to the duo, the courses they enjoy the most aren’t artificial. They look like they were carved from the original piece of land and have remnants of the time prior to the course sprouting up there.

“The most interesting courses are the ones that looked like they were discovered on that property,” Coore said. “[They don’t look like] they were brought there or manufactured there. They look like the property. They have the inherent character of the property.”

OK, those are two good ones for sure, though I'm pretty confident that there's a little more to it than that...

So, I guess Bill and Ben don't think much of their latest creation, since it famously has no bunkers....  Though it scores pretty highly on that other criterion.

This guy, in building his own Pleasure Dome, went a slightly different direction:

Why Michael Jordan’s Grove XXIII practice facility is one of the coolest spots in golf

 

 Well, what did you expect?


Big deal, just another place to which I'll never be invited....

On that bitter note, have a great weekend
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