Weekend Wrap

I'm getting to this earlier than expected, though the reader likely won't know to look for it until Tuesday morning.  But, Dear Reader, you are always foremost on my mind....

Zurich Zaniness - An odd week for sure.  Still better than another week of mindless 72 holes of stroke play, but there are certainly issues.  First, let's deal with the action, then we'll get to the format.

This header, you'll agree, covers a lot of ground:

Leishman & Smith hang on, Oosthuizen's brutal block and Finau avoids the asterisk victory

I think we can all agree that Finau's win-avoidance strategy has been comprehensive.  Not so much that he was avoiding the asterisk yesterday, just a normal Sunday for the young man.  That might be harsh, but they'll be no mandatory point deductions for inaccuracy.

See if you've heard this one before:

It went in the water, but it was a good shot is usually a phrase reserved for 15-handicappers who finally make great contact, only for their ball to get wet anyway. On Sunday at the Zurich Classic of

New Orleans, though, it was a thought that crossed Marc Leishman’s mind after his partner, Cameron Smith, rinsed one from the tee at the drivable par-4 16th at TPC Louisiana.

“I mean, he hit a really good shot,” said Leishman, who wound up hitting the most momentous shot of the entire week soon after Smith found the water. “It sounds silly, but it was the right shot, it just drifted a little in the wind. I wasn’t walking up there thinking I wanted to give him a jab in the ribs or something, I was just concentrating on the next shot.”

Just a couple of weeks back we heard Xander Schauffele saying much the same thing on a different 16th hole.  But it was a good shot, and because it was they were able to drop almost on the green.

Some other conclusions from the week:

That was a brutal block cut from Louis Oosthuizen

The man with (arguably) the sweetest swing on the planet, one that often produces a right to left ball flight that makes peons like us salivate, hitting a block cut in sudden death was legitimately shocking to see. That would have been painful enough for Oosthuizen in a regular tournament, but to do it in alternate shot with your fellow South African and buddy Charl Schwartzel is crushing. We’ve all played team golf in some capacity, be it for $5 at your club on Saturday or for millions of dollars on tour, and we all know that incredible sinking feeling of letting down your teammate. Luckily, Oosty is well-accustomed to the runner-up life and won’t lose too much sleep tonight, as long as he has his trusty mattress with him.

OK, but the one he hit in regulation was every bit as bad, setting aside where the water happened to be.  

My biggest gripe, though, is about the quality of play, which seemed really substandard.  That said, alternate shot takes one out of his comfort zone and the newly-grassed greens were rock hard, but still... It had me quoting Casey's iconic, "Can't anybody here play this game".

One more takeaway:

That was the best crowd yet

Yes, we know fans have been back for a decent while now, and events like the Players and the WGC-Dell Match Play look and sounded somewhat normal. But give the Zurich Classic crowd credit, they were very loud and very into it on Sunday, making an otherwise forgettable tournament feel big down the stretch. Guess that’s just the New Orleans difference. Between Sunday at Zurich, Saturday night’s full capacity UFC event in Florida, and baseball stadiums starting to fill up as the weather gets warmer, it’s starting to feel like sports truly on their way back, which not a single soul is complaining about.

Kind of a split verdict on this subject, with Shack weighing in on the "anti" side:

2021 Zurich Classic Offers A Grim Window Into A Baba Booey Future

With decent-sized galleries and apparently no mask mandate enforcement, the Zurich Classic’s compelling final round duel was occasionally interrupted by various drunken dopes and other dough brains screaming something to get attention.

Sigh.

One of the few upsides to the otherwise grim pandemic now appears destined to return or worse, become more prevalent due to pent-up obnoxiousness.

I guess it all comes down to on whom the lout spills his beer.... Of course I'm still struggling with the concept that folks think golf tournaments are fun to attend.  

But the bigger point that needs to made can be found in this tweet:

Should this event just be four rounds of alt shot?

— No Laying Up (@NoLayingUp) April 25, 2021

I'll let Geoff make the case against fourballs:

Four adults playing their ball and picking up when they’re out of the hole? That should (theoretically) go faster than four grown men playing pure stroke play.

Four-ball is a complete slog of a format with the best male golfers and needs to be eliminated where possible. But since the world’s best rarely are out of a hole and they’re slow as it is, the format produces a death march.

The Ryder Cup will not abandon four-ball matches even though they were not added until 1963. But the Zurich Classic is supposed to be entertaining. Its two best ball rounds drag on forever and produce so little tension.

But foursomes? Straight alternate shot certainly brings a different tension level. Maybe an excess of intensity given that foursomes is a match play format and was never envisioned as a form of stroke play.

As No Laying Up tweeted, four rounds of alternate shot might make the Zurich better. But four days of pure alternate shot would prove too fan-unfriendly over four days. I’d prefer to see the event go to Scotch foursomes (both players hit drives). Maybe play that version for three days and move to straight alternate shot for the final day?

Ah, who doesn't like a hybrid solution?

In any event, the Tour Confidential panel got into this issue in their weekly confab, which features more back-and-forth than is typical:

1. Australians Marc Leishman and Cameron Smith won the Zurich Classic, edging out South Africans Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel in a playoff. The Zurich is the only official PGA Tour event in which players compete as two-man teams, with the winning team evenly splitting both first- and second-place money and FedExCup points. Is one team event on the Tour schedule one event too many, too few or just right?

Sean Zak: It’s about one too few, which is close to just right! Anything less than one is just boring. Watch that playoff (and the few holes before it) Sunday and imagine what an exclusively alternate-shot event would play out like. Teams ripping around the course, nervous about every single shot. That’s super engaging golf for everyone at home.

Josh Sens: It’s the right number but the wrong format. One team event during the regular Tour schedule is plenty (we get our fill of two-on-two’s in the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup), but it should be alternate shot, which is the undisputed GOATF: greatest of all team formats.

Michael Bamberger: You can’t have Thursday-Sunday, 72-hole stroke-play competitions week after week after week. The Zurich Classic is a welcome change of pace. You could have a team match-play event, too. You could have a mixed-team stroke-play event. You could break things up by age (have 20-somethings played with 50-somethings, playing against teams with one 30-something and one 40-something). Maybe that’s too much for variety is life’s spice.

Dylan Dethier: You’ll get no argument from me on alternate shot as the GOATF. I think there’s clearly room for one more team event that pairs PGA and LPGA players and features stroke-play qualifying and match play on the weekend to conquer two big-money winners.

Compare and contrast those opinions with the work actually being done by Jay Monahan, none of which seems remotely focused on the actual golf competitions run by the Tour.

How else to exit this topic than a last tribute to Team Mullet:

Wilshire Wonderment - I'm not going to blog a game story on Brooke Henderson's win Saturday night, but there are a couple of issues that I find interesting enough to bore you with.  First, Geoff pens an ode to Wilshire Country Club in his weekly newsletter:

If you caught any of the LPGA’s Hugel-Air Premia L.A. Open on Golf Channel, you know there was an easy drinking game built around Hollywood sign mentions. But for good reason in this case.

From several parts of Wilshire Country Club you can see the former real estate billboard-turned-iconic symbol. And putts may even break away from it. Certainly beats hearing about everything breaking toward Indio.

Other notable landmarks in your face from Wilshire: downtown Los Angeles, the Griffith Observatory, the old El Royale sign and several well-preserved historic structures, including Howard Hughes’ old home off the 8th green. The entire setting feels like an L.A. Confidential set piece.

Put this with Norman MacBeth’s 1919 character-rich design and the whole thing makes for a magical tournament setting. Wilshire gives the LPGA Tour a necessary “sense of place” jolt even when it can’t welcome fans.

The transformative role of “place” is always my lasting impression when Wilshire hosts since people all over the country ask if the course and setting is as good as it looks on TV. It is.

Take away the vintage LA backdrop and Wilshire’s superb on its own thanks to a bunch of original and offbeat design features. But couple the architecture with the surrounding sights? Even random city sounds like police helicopters, busy streets and the occasional siren add to the charm.

 That's one of Geoff's own photos of Wilshire with iconic El Royale looming above.

I do think Geoff makes an important point, a reminder of one of the many charms of the Old Course as well.  I'm not sure there's a huge number of potential venues that can tick this box, so how about we just agree to default to timeless architecture... Yanno, like TPC Louisiana.... Kidding!

The other point to be made is about the scheduling, a Wednesday-Saturday event, starting with that TC panel:

4. The LPGA Tour winner’s circle this season is an all-star team: Jessica Korda, Nelly Korda, Austin Ernst, Inbee Park, Patty Tavatanakit, Lydia Ko and now Brooke Henderson, who won the Hugel-Air Premia LA Open. For the second week in a row, the LPGA finished on a Saturday. Do you prefer a Saturday finish for LPGA events, given it provides separation from the final round of PGA Tour events?

Zak: It’s less about the Saturday finish for me and more about the Wednesday start. An entire day of the week devoted to women’s golf, the courses that host women’s golf, the sponsors that enrich women’s golf, the caddies who loop for LPGA players, etc. I know it’s lame for women to alter their schedule to be opposite what the men’s game has standardized, but it might not be a bad business decision.

Sens: Personally, the Saturday finish doesn’t make a big difference; I find it easy enough to toggle back and forth between two events and I’d rather devote just one day of the weekend to being a couch potato anyway. But if it gets more eyeballs on women’s golf, I’m all for it. In that respect, it seems like a smart move.

 Bamberger: So sensible, both the Wednesday start and the Saturday finish.

OK, Mike, I guess this is our "Math is Hard moment", but they're one and the same decision.  If you start on Wednesday, you're gonna finish on Saturday... 

Dethier: It’s not just the Saturday bit that’s fun — it’s the primetime bit. When the LPGA plays on the west coast and the PGA is on the east coast, we golf fans get a proper balance of consumption. Personally I’d love to see more staggered events so that tournaments wrapped up on Saturday nights or even Mondays — but I don’t think the numbers have yet backed that up as a strong business decision. Not everyone can watch golf on the first workday of the week, after all.

It took the young punk Dylan to finish the thought...  this is incredibly appealing, especially the Wed.-Fri. bits airing after folks get home from the office golf course. 

I've been arguing for this for years in these pages, and it's quite nice to have some company.  That said, it's a little silly to advocate for it without at least acknowledging the profound issues it raises.  To understand those, all you have to do is ask yourself why tournaments concluded on a Sunday.  The obvious answer is that the vast hordes needed, spectators, volunteers and TV eyeballs, are more readily available on Saturday and Sunday.  Not coincidentally, those are the only two days traditionally on network television, and you forego those at your own peril.

That said, the absence of spectators mitigates the need for volunteers, and people working from home are just another way of saying TV golf viewers, so now presents a unique opportunity to try this, and the LPGA seems to have jumped on it.  But compare this actual schedule to Alan Shipnuck's strategery:

Been saying forever the LPGA events should be Sat-Tues. that way they’d own the two slowest days of the week. https://t.co/uCD5D4FIKu

— Alan Shipnuck (@AlanShipnuck) April 25, 2021

You want them to finish on a Tuesday?  With no one in the stands and broadcast during the day (except when on the Left Bank)?  Isn't that what you'd do if your objective was to have no one know they're even playing? 

Of course, the ladies are heading to Singapore this week, so it doesn't matter what days they play on, at least here in the U.S.

PIP My Ride - Everyone and their Uncle has opined on this slush fund, with predictable results.  The ten guys that figure to cash a check are all in....  As for the rest of humanity, well, why do you think the Tour kept this a big, dark secret?

John Feinstein had a piece up last week in which he ruminates on something I gave a little thought to, the reaction of Fred Smith:

And so the first question: Where is the tour getting the $40 million? At the moment, there’s no corporate sponsor and there’s not likely to be one, if only because Fred Smith, the CEO of FedEx, which has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the tour dating to 2007, would probably lose his mind if PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan stood up and proudly announced a new multi-million-dollar corporate partnership in order to pay 10 players millions of dollars.

As it is, one wonders how FedEx, whose contract with the tour runs through 2027, is going to react to a new program that rewards players for being popular. Flawed as the FedEx Cup playoff system is, the hundreds of millions the company has invested has gotten the top players to keep playing through the end of the summer after the major championships are over. That was the whole point when then-commissioner Tim Finchem convinced FedEx to sign on in the first place. FedEx and the PGA Tour are now so closely entwined that the FedEx logo is imbedded in the floor of the lobby inside the tour’s new multi-million-dollar headquarters.

Awkward!  But couldn't happen to a more deserving group of fellows....

It seems obvious the PIP is a reaction to the threat of the proposed Premier Golf League, which was first publicly discussed a year ago. The PGL model calls for 18 events in a season for huge money (reportedly $240 million) each year. But despite the financial enticements, a handful of top-ranked players, notable Rory McIlroy and Brooks Koepka among them, said they weren’t interested, stymieing the tour’s launch.

The very idea of the PGL clearly scared the tour, and the PIP appears to be a direct response to that concept: If we give top players millions for doing nothing on top of the millions they are already making, they won’t be tempted by the PGL. It’s an overreaction to something that doesn’t even exist at the moment.

Most businesses facing an existential threat would look to  improve their product or service.  Not Kubla Jay, he's gonna solve the PGL problem by paying off Rickie Fowler.... 

Feinstein pulls off a clever trick.  See if you're amused by it, which starts in predictable fashion:

That said, it’s worth considering who might be among the 10 players in line this year to receive

the $40 million in bonuses the tour is going to hand out.

Presumably Tiger Woods is No. 1 on the list (presumably because the tour hasn’t made any ranking public) even though he is recovering from his horrific car accident. Woods is regularly mentioned on social-media platforms that the tour proposes to use to measure “impact” and he still receives more attention than anyone who is actually playing golf right now.

Years ago, when Woods was the No. 1 player in the world by leaps and bounds, Tommy Roy, NBC’s longtime golf executive producer, told me that a survey the network had done asked viewers this question: “Would you rather watch any other player hitting a shot or watch Tiger Woods leaning on his bag waiting for his turn to play?” According to Roy, 45 percent of viewers said they’d rather watch Woods talk club selection with then-caddie Steve Williams.

Fair enough, but who else is on that list?

Now, guess who probably should be No. 2 on the list, if popularity is the measure? How about Charlie Woods. OK, he’s not eligible (yet) but think about the interest his presence at the PNC Challenge last December created among the media, TV, print, digital, social and otherwise. Of course, I’m kidding that Charlie should be paid for the engagement he helped bring the tour, but I bring him up to make the point that paying competitive athletes (or their children) based on popularity is ludicrous.

Heh, I see what you did there...

 Here's John's rousing coda:

The larger point isn’t so much who will or will not be on the list. It’s the question again of why spend $40 million to make a bunch of very rich guys richer? To get them to sign more autographs or go on social media more often? Seriously? It’s flailing at an opponent who doesn’t even exist at the moment. It is just about the worst idea since New Coke. With luck, it will go away just about as quickly.

Oh, I don't think this is going anywhere... Once you get used to suckling on that teat...

John Hawkins and Mike Purkey do a point-counterpoint on the subject, and there's this one issue I think could bear some scrutiny:

Hawk’s take: This isn’t about the rich getting richer (they are) or the threat of a rival golf league (PGL = Pretty Gigantic Longshot). It’s about recognizing who butters the bread, and in professional golf, one man owns a majority share of the margarine. Hundreds of tour pros have gotten wealthy while riding the coattails of Tiger Woods over the years, although no one has prospered more from Eldrick’s greatness than the PGA Tour itself.

It’s long past time for Camp Ponte Vedra to acknowledge the primary source of its good fortune. This should have happened before the hydrant or the pills or the shattered right leg. Cutting the $40 million pie into 10 pieces is mere window dressing. Woods will receive the largest slice for many years to come, regardless of how often he plays. As for those of you who bemoan the likely inclusion of underachiever Rickie Fowler on this list, his mainstream appeal is more valuable to the Tour than some guy who wins two or three tournaments a year and acts like a brat doing it.

Hawk, why are you so certain that Tiger has been underpaid all these years?

The basic format of our game has been that the Tour runs the events and redistributes the increasing sums into tourney purses.  In case you were away, Tiger bagged a pretty nice share of said purses over the years, as per this current schedule of career earnings:

Is that being underpaid?  If you think so, make the case, but a case needs to be made.  I'm not about to diminish Tiger's role in this game, but it's hardly a one-man show.  There was a Tour before Tiger and there will be one long after he leaves the game, so I find this "All our riches are due to Tiger" a bit much.

But the second part of the status quo ante is that the players are free to reap their fortunes from other sources, which are likely to be motivated by the same kinds of parameters the Tour is now invoking.  How much do we figure Tiger has reaped from endorsements, appearances, books and the like?  Do we still think he's tragically underpaid?

The TC panel also gets in on the act:

2. The PGA Tour has instituted a bonus system that will reward its most popular players. According to Golfweek, the Player Impact Program will spread $40 million to the 10 players who have the highest “impact score,” an amalgam of data based largely on social-media metrics. The system has been in place since Jan. 1, and the highest-ranking player at the end of the season will pocket $8 million. (The program was quickly viewed as a response to the would-be Premier Golf League, which was promising to pay the game’s superstars huge sums to play in its events.) What do you make of the popularity payouts?

Zak: They are 100% validated and also a horrible look. I’m not here to tell the best male players in the world that they shouldn’t be able to derive fair market value for their abilities (both on course and off), so go for it. But I’m also very aware of the lower rungs of professional golf. We all are. If that much money can be awarded for a popularity prize, during the later stages of a budget-tightening pandemic, then why isn’t there more money to go around in other parts of pro golf? Why didn’t the Canadian Tour host a respectable number of events in 2020? Why is their 2021 schedule still unannounced? A lot of whys go unanswered when the rich get richer.

I think Sean did a good job with his qualms, but what in heck does "100% validated" mean?  The Tour runs golf tournaments and disburses purses based on, get this, scores.  If they're flush with an extra $40 million large, increase those purses (or, yanno, their charitable giving).  This is actually a dangerous idea, splitting up a slush fund based on obscure metrics.  The absolute paragon of meritocracies will now compensate the cool kids... Problem is, how do those found lacking in cool take it?

Sens: What do I make of them? They are the inevitable result of a media culture that has turned everything in life into a high school cool-kid contest. It’s depressing, but I get it. I’m not a boomer, after all. Almost, but not quite. And I suppose it could be interesting to see what crazy lengths some players go to get a higher “impact score.”

Bamberger: That’s perfect, Josh. But that doesn’t mean we have to sit here and take it. I think it demeans the PGA Tour.

Dethier: Players were already being rewarded for their popularity and “impact” through ad deals, sponsorships, appearance fees and more. I’ve always seen the PGA Tour’s job as putting on tournaments and paying the winners. It seems off to me, then, for the Tour to pay its most popular players — but I guess the simplest way to think about it is that they’re advertising for themselves and they’re investing where they’ll get the highest return. It can make sense but I don’t have to particularly like it.

Bamberger: I agree with that, too. But do we really need ‘particularly’ in that last sentence? I don’t have to like it and I don’t.

Obviously there are a gazillion folks who don't care, but I'm yet to find the first person that likes it in the wild.

I'm not sure this question pays off:

3. There were mixed opinions among players over the program. Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay said it wouldn’t push them to be more active on social media, while Marc Leishman said he is trying to bolster his social media presence. Do you suspect the program will get players paying closer attention to their Twitter and Instagram accounts, or will most players carry on as they have been?

Zak: I think more players will look to partner with brands that can help show off their personality. We won’t see the Xanders of the world tweeting a bunch more, but we might see Xander appear on a bunch of podcasts. Brooks Koepka is clearly aligning himself with Barstool Sports already, and much like Kevin Kisner that’s going to pay off incredibly for him. (Good idea, too, when you’re injured.)

Sens: Sean’s right. The key factors in the equation will be personality and pursestrings. We aren’t likely to see sudden tweet-storms from successful players who weren’t already inclined to post a lot on social media. But for those who dig the digital life, for sure. They’ll be on their phone even more.

Dethier: We’re going to see some fun #content come out of this. And we’re going to see some truly hellacious posting, too.

Bamberger: Marc Leishman was being polite. He’s not changing anything. He’s too smart, and comfortable with himself, to get into this numbers chase. Most players will carry on as they have been. If a guy is No. 3 on the list late in the season, he might try to get a late-inning rally started. You know, fan contests to see what club he should hit on the first par-3, etc. #Sad.

It's just so crazy weird.  The guys they're talking about above mostly don't touch their own social media accounts.  The youngs guys that do, the Max Homas and Wesley Bryants, are not likely to find that their loyalty warrants a big price tag from Kubla Jay.  And for a nonexistent threat....

Acorn, Tree -  I'm supposed to like Gary Player, right?  Golf's global ambassador and all...  Yet, there's this dark side I can't quite accommodate myself to, and I'm not referring to the color palette of his outfits.  

What most troubles me are the cheating allegations...  There's that member at Royal Lytham that swears he found Gary's ball the Monday after an Open Championship, not to mention Tom Watson's famous, "Gary, we're all tired of this s**t" from that original Skins Game when Gary was doing a pitch-perfect Patrick Reed impression.  

From Geoff's newsletter we have a report on an interview Player gave in which he was asked about his spawn's stealing Lee Elder's moment of appreciation:

On the latest Talkin Golf with Ann Liguori, Gary Player was asked about son Wayne’s shilling at the ceremonial first tee shot. You may recall he placed a sleeve of balls in hand while behind Lee

Elder as the Masters honored the first Black golfer to play in the tournament.

Kooky papa Gary Player called the move “wrong” and claimed Wayne was sending a message to friends who’d be shocked dad was playing the little-known ball for the Honorary Starter’s Ceremony.

I guess that’s a better answer than displaying the box because the Darrell Survey was no where in sight.  Jay Busbee at Yahoo transcribed the key remarks and word of Wayne phoning Elder to apologize. He also noted this curious rationalization from dad:

“Let me tell you, Augusta has done a lot of things that a lot of people don’t like, as well, throughout history,” Player said. But he also noted that Augusta National has final jurisdiction on the matter.

Yes they do. We’ll know 51 weeks from now how they ruled on the matter.

OK, I'm gonna need a moment to clean up my spit take from the thought that anyone might care what ball Gary played to hit the one shot as honorary starter.   

But that's some world class whataboutism there, especially as the principle allegations against Augusta National over the years related to their slow pace in adapting to social change.  That's certainly fair game and, irony alert, is pretty much why Elder was given this honor that your son had no compunction against imposing himself on.  But, and an irony alert is insufficient for these circumstances, how are we to react to such nonsense from a man that hails from and played for the Republic of South Africa?  

But, just to be safe, how about we ban Wayne and Gary as well from Augusta?  Just for a trial period, say twenty years.

These Guys Are Were Good - Well, one guy in particular, can't miss kid Matthew Wolff:

In eight starts this year, the 22-year-old one-time PGA Tour winner and former NCAA champ

from Oklahoma State has two WDs, a missed cut and a DQ that came at the Masters, where he signed an incorrect scorecard, but he would have missed the cut by a mile anyway after what ended up being rounds of 76-79. His 71.58 scoring average is among the worst on the tour, ranking 132nd out of 209 players. At the WGC-Workday Championship in February, he opened with an 83 and a couple of hours later withdrew, despite the tournament not having a cut. In January, he opened with a 78 at the Farmers Insurance Open then withdrew with a hand injury. Only twice this year has he finished a week under par—his best result a T-36 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open.

Perhaps riding the tail of Morikawa, the fourth-ranked player in the world and already with a victory this year, would help stop the bleeding. It didn’t.

There’s nowhere to hide in the alternate shot play and Wolff’s performance was largely responsible for the team’s five bogeys and a double. Among the examples: a wide-right tee shot and poor pitch on the 12th, a missed six-footer for par at 15, a lousy wedge from the middle of the fairway on 16, after which Wolff looked like he wanted to snap the club over his head.

Bad golf, worse sulking.

Shall we hand the proceedings over to the armchair psychiatrists?

There’s also the element adjusting to a lonely life in the lonely world of professional golf. In college, there are myriad support systems for a player. On tour, it’s ultimately every man for

himself, no matter the friendships. Some struggle with that transition more than others.

“It’s a different world to travel on your own,” Morikawa said. “Yeah, you have an agent, but you’re out there by yourself in a hotel room. You can’t prep for that. There’s a certain age where some people are more mature than others. I wouldn’t blame it on young age—he’s won and proven he can do it—but he just has to find that little thing in his swing and get over that hurdle.”

The only good news in this is that you'll come out of the piece liking the man even more than you already did.  No, not Wolff, but could anyone ask for a better partner?

Matthew Wolff walked off the tee at the par-3 17th at TPC Louisiana on Friday, his head down and expression joyless. He and teammate Collin Morikawa had just made double bogey the hole before, the result of a badly pulled tee shot from Wolff into a hazard. Morikawa came up from behind and put his hands on Wolff’s shoulders, trying to shake the pouty mood of his partner.

“I told him let’s keep your head up for the next 10, 11 holes,” Morikawa said. “I said, I don’t care what we shoot. Let’s just go have fun. If you hit the ball wherever, I don’t care, no one cares. Let’s just find the next shot, hit it and keep trying to make birdies.

A class act.  There's this as well, though it does strain credulity:

“Everyone goes through these ups and downs,” Morikawa said. “I’m sure he’s going to figure it out. I don’t know when. But it was fun playing with him.”

It just couldn't have been fun watching your friend struggle like that...

I'll be back later in the week, though I'm not exactly sure when.