Tuesday Trifles

The next couple of days may not be conducive to blogging so, to hedge my bets, let's cover a few things today.  I shan't keep you long...

Ruh Roh - In case you've been wondering wassup with DJ:

Could this explain DJ's desultory play in recent events?  We're left to guess at things like this by the geniuses that run the Tour, including the weighty decision of whether to bet your rent money on DJ in the PGA Championship.

Shack found a strange aspect to the announcement, which seems to have prompted a bit of gratuitous PIP-bashing:

Maybe the most unusual thing about the news of World No. 1 Dustin Johnson WD’ing from this week’s AT&T Byron Nelson: the announcement was made by the PGA Tour.

With PIP dynamics and Johnson as a prime target of Golf Saudi for its Super Golf League, you have to wonder if this was a way to prevent Johnson from accruing points on the back of a WD? PIP watchers must know!

Gosh what a lame program.

Anyway, this was probably just the Tour wanting to help an injured player save time by doing the statement-issuing instead of a traditional social media announcement. Right?

His WD leaves the event with three top 10 players in the field before next week’s PGA Championship.

Careful, Geoff, or you'll get a call from Hockey Jay.  And I've been reliably informed that you don't want to meet Hockey Jay...

The Fix Is In - To the Walker Cup, that is.  I'm a little skeptical that it needs much fixing, but Adam Schupak has four suggestions to make it even more epic, beginning with the golf calendar.

The 48th playing of the biennial competition between a team of 10 U.S. male amateur golfers and 10 players from Great Britain and Ireland was staged in early May this year ostensibly due to

weather reasons. Florida in the traditional fall date during Hurricane season could have been a (natural) disaster. But I’ve been saying this for a while: The dates need to be shifted permanently to May or early June at the latest.

GB&I may not like it because the golf season across the pond is just getting started, but the reality is that the September date is antiquated for these college-aged players, many of whom plan to turn pro and no longer want to wait and miss out on sponsor’s invites and the chance to earn enough money and qualify for the Korn Ferry Tour Finals. The week after the NCAA Men’s Championship finishes (first week of June) is about as late as this competition should be contested. We want to see the best 10 players on each side, not just the best 10 that didn’t turn pro early.

I'm not at all sure that this is doable, and Geoff has his own qualms:

I’m on the fence about Schupak’s call to move the matches permanently to early May. This works around the NCAA Championships and ensuing June and July pro debut weeks for top college golfers. I get the concept, but a lot may change with amateurism in the coming years. This also feels like a nod to the PGA Tour’s untenable wraparound schedule and the pro tournament exemption game, two things that could easily change and which are way less important to golf than the Walker Cup.

Not mentioned by either Adam or Geoff are the venue implications....  As just a for instance, that Old Course Walker Cup in 2023 has me aflutter, but how would you like it in early May?  OK, admittedly it couldn't possibly be any colder than the NYC area this past weekend, but you'll grasp the issues.

Just spitballin' here, but Schupak is spot on about the September date, which unfortunately also applies to the U.S. Amateur.  With Tour Q-School eliminated, the kids simply don't feel they can give up the summer playing on the Korn Ferry or Mackenzie/Latin America developmental tours, and who really can blame them.  And perhaps the Sam Burns story is at play here as well, because Burns did wait then got snubbed unaccountably by the USGA.

The next couple of suggestions we've heard from many sources:

That brings me to my next change. Out of concern for COVID-19, both teams had two alternates

available that traveled to the matches. That became important to the success of the matches when a different virus reared its ugly head and 18 of the 24 competitors dealt with a stomach virus. It forced both teams to use alternates for the first time in the 99-year history of the competition. It’s time to expand the roster to 12 members to a team. As Team USA alternate Mac Meissner said, “I worked my butt off to be on this team.”

But he didn’t do so to wear an ear piece all weekend and have a beach holiday. The Ryder Cup already has proved that 12 is the magic number.

 Which should be combined with this one:

And while we’re borrowing from the Ryder Cup, let’s add a third day of competition. This has been widely discussed before and I just don’t see what the downside to another day of competition should be. Two years of buildup for two days? We can do better than that. We’ve got the best players assembled, so let them settle who’s best on the course and enough with the practice rounds. Even U.S. team captain Nathaniel Crosby seemed to be on board with several of these suggestions.

“I’d love to see it go to 12 players, a couple alternates and three days,” he said. “The guys fight so hard to get here. It takes two years. But that’s my opinion, and I’m sure that there’s a dogfight back in some conference room that I’m not invited to on that.

I don't know, there may be something to be said for leaving them wanting more.  I have come to believe that they should avoid the fourball format, so I'll take the minority opinion and say leave it as is, though maybe go to 12-man teams.

And this one is approaching unanimity:

Speaking of the much ballyhooed pro version of the Walker Cup, it’s time for the USGA to take a page out of the Ryder Cup playbook and expand the GB&I side to constitute all of Europe. Doing so rejuvenated the Ryder Cup from what was a stale competition into arguably the biggest deal in golf.

While GB&I put up a noble fight, losing 14-12, the U.S. now holds a 38-9-1 all-time record in the competition. It isn’t quite the Harlem Globetrotters dominance of the Washington Generals, but it is lopsided enough to resemble Alabama over the rest of the SEC. Four years from now when GB&I returns to the U.S. for the matches at Cypress Point, it is likely that none of the competitors will have been born since GB&I last won on U.S. soil (in 2001). We’ll never know how much of a difference Spain’s Jon Rahm and Norway’s Viktor Hovland would have made, but I’d love to find out from the next generation of continental Europe stars and put to bed the nickname of “the Walk-over Cup.”

As I noted yesterday, I'd hate to lose the GB&I moniker in golf, but including continental Europe did have a rather profound effect on the Ryder Cup.  Shack actually runs the numbers, and it's a not insignificant difference:

This year’s GB&I team by the ranking:

1 of the top 20

4 of the top 30

6 of the top 50

Versus:

If the team had been expanded to Europe it would have looked like this on paper:

4 of the top 20

9 of the top 20

12 of the top 50

Not that you've ever heard of the players involved, but that's a substantial upgrade.  Of course, I'm not buying this argument:

This would mark a huge change for the R&A to grapple with. I can’t fathom the first world ramifications Martin Slumbers and friends would have to deal with given the times (Brexit). The change would also be a tough sell given how valiantly this year’s team played and how close they came to winning.

Brexit  Yeah, right... Perhaps someone should remind Geoff that those Irish players live in a country that's still a part of the European Union.

 Geoff had one suggestion of his own:

As for the one non-Schupak suggestion that’s all mine: honorary Seminole memberships for all 24 players.

Why?

Besides putting on a great show, the simple act of not spilling their guts out on the course and revealing from where the “stomach bug” originated. Given that media outlets blamed The Breakers or worse, just ran from the story with access in mind, it’s not hard to deduce what happened.

OK, so share it with the rest of us....

Don't Be This Guy -  I have a different reaction than the author:

Every once in awhile you come across a headline that seems too shocking—and too horrific—to

be real. This is one of those times.

A man has been arrested on suspicion of killing a dog for taking his golf ball. Puerto Rico police posted on Facebook a statement with a photo of 60-year-old Salil Zaveri being handcuffed at the Wyndham Grand Rio Mar resort on Saturday.

According to reports, the incident occurred on the 17th hole after a dog stole Zaveri's golf ball. Zaveri fired several gunshots at the dog with a 9-mm pistol.

"Thank you to MY police officers, who today were the voice of justice of a puppy, whom an unscrupulous, killed viciously, for no reason and in a clear disregard for life," police commissioner Antonio Lopez Figueroa said in a statement.

Zaveri, the CEO of Zaveri Consulting, was released on a $60,000 bond, but his passport and drivers license have been seized, according to the Associated Press.

Your humble blogger, in contrast, heard the story and never doubted its authenticity....  Though the perp is maintaining that it's a mercy killing.  No, really.

An Ode To Charles -  In his Monday Finish feature, Dylan Dethier pens an ode to Sir Charles:

Charles Barkley‘s name had literally become synonymous in the golf world with having a comically bad swing. But he didn’t quit. He doubled down. He saw a new coach. He took a new approach. And he worked at it until he legitimately changed his swing for the better.

The year is 2021, and Charles Barkley ... can golf?! pic.twitter.com/VpwgE6PraJ

— Skratch (@Skratch) May 5, 2021

This does violate our Terms of Service in the use of "golf" as a verb...

This marks some small triumph of the human spirit; Barkley’s story is inspirational and we could all learn a thing or two from it. First, that being afraid of looking silly won’t get you anywhere. Second, if you don’t like your swing, fix it! Barkley did both. He deserves our admiration.

The guy is supposed to be a world class athlete...

We owe Charles a debt of gratitude, as he's basically saved two separate installments of The Match.

One Course - This tab has been open for a while, but if I don't jump on the Seminole connection I'll never blog it:

One course for the rest of your life? It's the best question you can ask a golfer

The hardest golf course I ever played was Pine Valley—backward. The practice has been discontinued, but for many years, Pine Valley members used to gather on the Saturday after

Thanksgiving and play the No. 1 course in the country not from tee to green, but from green to tee (or more precisely, to the previous green). For example, we used to tee up on the collar of the 18th green and play over hill and hazard to the 17th green—now that is a monstrous par 4! I’ve never wavered in believing that Pine Valley, frontward or backward, is America’s greatest golf course, but it’s not the answer to this question: If you could play only one course the rest of your life, which would it be?

Dave Anderson wrote a story for Golf Digest on this topic in 1983 in which he surveyed 50 of golf’s cognoscenti, and the predominant answer was Cypress Point. I remember him telling me he called Ben Hogan’s office in Fort Worth and left this question for the taciturn Hogan. A couple of days later, he received a call back from Claribel Kelly, Ben’s secretary, who had once been his elementary school classmate. She said Mr. Hogan replied, “Seminole. Of all the courses I’ve played, I’ve enjoyed it the most.”

I don't think Cypress Point actually qualifies, because it's three separate courses...

Of course, the single best part of this piece is the response when Dave Anderson had a follow up:

Anderson, a Pulitzer Prize winner for The New York Times, asked if Mr. Hogan could explain why. There was a long pause on the other end of the phone until finally Claribel said, “Mistah An-duh-son, I think you should feel lucky you got what you got.”

Well, Hogan.

I said this would be brief...  Catch you down the road.