Tuesday, June 22, 2021

Tuesday Trifles

In which we reheat some U.S. Open leftovers, then pivot back to a few other bits.

The Open - Further Reflections - We'll lead with a couple of prototypical Day 2 stories, not least of which is Daniel Rappaport's ambitious portfolio of eighteen (Gee, why that number?) parting thoughts, leading with this bit on Rahm's discipline:

1: We start, as always, with the winner. As mentioned above, Rahm’s victory resembles a Hollywood script for a number of reasons. But we’re going to focus on something far less romantic: the distinctly unemotional decision he made in the most crucial moment.

Rahm was tied for the lead as he sent his second shot into the green on the par-5 18th hole. His ball kicked pretty hard right before resting on a downslope of the bunker, with the green sloping away from him and toward a water hazard. The temptation there is to try to nip a spinner right at the flag and leave yourself a kick-in birdie. As one of the better bunker players on Earth, Rahm is absolutely capable of that shot. But it’s also a hugely risky undertaking, for the consequences of a not-perfect shot could be dire.

It’s so difficult to think of the negative in that moment. Rahm had just gutted a winding birdie putt on 17 and screamed at the top of his lungs when it dropped. His veins were overflowing with adrenaline. He’d waited his whole life for this moment, an up-and-down birdie to likely win the U.S. Open … and he had the discipline to pull himself out of dreamland and acknowledge that he might not hit that bunker shot perfect—and if he doesn’t, he brings disaster into play.

So he made the mature if unsexy decision, played safely right of the flag, eliminated the water from the equation and gave himself an 18-footer for birdie. He’s not likely to hole that putt—the PGA Tour make percentage from that distance is roughly 17 percent—but he made sure he had a birdie look, which is what made it the smart choice from a probability standpoint. He wasn’t taking a knee or accepting par; he made the decision that gave him the best chance to make the lowest score considering all possible outcomes from the bunker shot. Of course, it looked genius when the putt fell in dead-center, but it was the right call either way. Little moments like those often serve as the differentiator in a 72-hole event, and Rahm handled a high-leverage situation perfectly.

I think that's right, if a bit overly generous in its praise of the Spaniard because it ignores the fact that every contender, save King Louis, had coughed up shots by the bushelful.  Everyone was backing up so quickly that there was a moment when Harris English posting -3 looked...well, interesting.  Rahm wanted that birdie, but it wasn't clear that he would need it.

Most interesting is to compare it with this guy:

2: That’s now six runner-up finishes at majors for Louis Oosthuizen, and along with his playoff loss to Bubba Watson at the 2012 Masters, this one might sting most. The shot he hit on the 17th tee—a pull into the hazard when there were acres and acres of turf right of the fairway—will not soon fade from his memory.

In turn, his reputation for near-misses only grows, which is equal parts amazing and unfortunate. One does not simply rack up seven top-two finishes in majors; that’s the same number Brooks Koepka has, and more than Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy. Oosthuizen is an incredible player who shows up time and again in the sport’s biggest events, but we’re running out of justifications for his down-the-stretch tumbles. That he still hasn’t won a PGA Tour event since the 2010 Open Championship remains one of the crazier realities in golf.

Is it crazy?   Remember yesterday's discussion of that 17th hole tee shot, in which Oosty felt he had to aggressively flirt with the hazard line (and which, after the fact, he said he'd do again), and compare to Rahm's decision on No. 18 discussed above.  As experienced as he is, Oosty clearly misread his situation and pressed at a juncture when he had no need to do so, so I would posit that all those near misses might be explainable after all.

Some thoughts on where we go from here:

5: On Saturday night, I received the following text from a player at Torrey: “Bryson is going to win this. And it’s gonna be like this for years if they don’t change the setup a bit.” A tad fatalistic, perhaps, but it does speak to a growing trend at the U.S. Open.

Last year, Winged Foot played straight into the bombers’ hands. Those fairways were nearly impossible to hit, and when everyone is constantly in the rough, being closer is simply a massive advantage. Torrey’s fairways weren’t quite so hard to find—the kikuyu gives them that soft first bounce, and they’re not as canted—and while some non-bombers were able to hang this week, it felt like no coincidence that Rahm, Bryson, Brooks, Wolff, Rory and Co. bashed their way into contention. The identity of this championship, as Paul Azinger pointed out ad nauseum, has shifted from accuracy-first to power-first. It’s not necessarily a good or bad thing, but it’s a true thing, and it’ll be fascinating to see the setups at The Country Club next year and Los Angeles Country Club in 2023. Rough doesn’t feature quite so prominently at either of those courses, but in the post-Chambers Bay, post-Erin Hills years, the USGA has stuck with a narrow-fairway-brutal-rough-formula. We’ll see if it continues.

I never thought the Open could return to either Merion or The Country Club, so we can only hope that Brookline is more successful than Philly was...  But with the distance these guys are sending it, there aren't many set-up options left, and God forbid they get wet weather...

 But this is a surprisingly good promo for July:

6: Despite his back-nine implosion, DeChambeau has mastered the art—er, science?—of bomb-and-gouge. If that name offends you, we’ll go with bomb-and-reassess. Becoming a beefed-up
Bryson wasn’t just about adding speed and distance, but also vowing to fully commit to a new strategy. It’s not just that he’s hitting it farther, it’s that he hits driver wherever it’s even semi-feasible. The data supports this strategy. You wallop driver off the tee. If you find the fairway, you attack. If you don’t, you shift your focus to making par. And DeChambeau is able to do this better than basically anyone for two main reasons. One, his sheer strength allows him to muscle balls out of rough that other guys cannot. Two, his single-length irons mean his wedge and short irons are longer than most, allowing him to get some extra speed and steepness into the ball, which are crucial to rescuing balls from calf-high cabbage.

And while it may not be the most aesthetically pleasing method to make your way around a golf course, nor is it the type of game Bobby Jones or Ben Hogan played, it’s paying huge dividends at tough courses with penal rough. Places like Winged Foot and Torrey Pines, yes, but also Bay Hill, where DeChambeau won earlier this year. How it’ll work at Royal St. George’s, where the wind is always a factor, is anyone’s guess. We have yet to see Beefy Bryson bring his experiment to a links course, and the juxtaposition between the ancient courses and his distinctly modern game present a fascinating dynamic.

That will be interesting, as there are some interesting spots to search for golf balls at RSG... Just ask Tiger, and he at least had the full five minutes to look for his.

Rappaport has some interesting "Inside Golf" thoughts that he shares.  For instance, this does seem unfair, though I don't know what one does about it:

14: An interesting, inside-golf problem that could use addressing. A number of Korn Ferry players were in the field this week and did not receive any Korn Ferry Tour points for their performance. This may sound like the obvious outcome—the U.S. Open is not a Korn Ferry Tour event—but should guys really be punished for playing their way into a major?

Consider Taylor Montgomery, who got into the field through the Southern California qualifying site. He came into this week ranked No. 24 on the KFT points list, with the top 25 getting PGA Tour cards at the end of the regular season in August. Montgomery made the cut in the U.S. Open. And he dropped to No. 28 on the KFT list because he didn’t play in the tournament that was going on simultaneously in Wichita, Kan. The same is true for Dylan Wu, who came into the week at No. 28 on the KFT, finished T-31 at Torrey, and will be further from his PGA Tour card come Monday morning. This feels like a no brainer; create some points scale to award players who get into majors and play well in them.

Similarly, I'd guess that they don't get Corn Fairy points when they qualify for a PGA Tour event.  

And this age old dilemma:

15: Announcers can’t stop, won’t stop saying “this, from a minute ago.” It’s a reasonable thing to say if journalistic integrity is your No. 1 goal. But this is entertainment, and every time a broadcaster says that we know something is about to happen. If it’s a guy way out of contention putting from 60 feet, you know it’s going down. If it’s a shot from the fairway, you know it’s going to flirt with the flag. A huge part of what makes watching sports on TV so fun is not knowing what’s going to happen. So, stop telling us this was from a moment a go. Lie to us. We’re giving you permission to do so. For entertainment’s sake.

I've never had an objection to the plausibly live thing, though even without the disclaimer, we know that if they're showing Joe Rabbit's 60-footer, it's dropping.

Dylan Dethier uses his Monday Finish column to share ten scenes that weren't on the broadcast:

1. The pitch-black range session

This one’s from earlier in the week, but worth a note: Bryson DeChambeau hit balls on Thursday night until it was absolutely pitch-black. I don’t mean the ball was hard to see. I mean everything was hard to see. There were no lights. There was an illuminated leaderboard for a while, but then that flickered off, too. DeChambeau pounded balls into the darkness, searching for one tiny swing thought.

If you’re on Team Bryson, you’d argue that it’s the same indefatigable work ethic that propelled DeChambeau to victory at Winged Foot following a late-night range session after his Saturday round. If you’re anti-Bryson you’d call it a try-hard move that ultimately backfired and added unnecessary mental and physical strain to his week. I’m not here to tell you which side to take, but I will say the idea that DeChambeau does this as some sort of “look-at-me” gesture just doesn’t check out. He’s out there late every single time he plays a round, trying to fix whatever swing issue is weighing heavy on his mind. Solving riddles. That’s how he operates.

So, it's a floor cleaner and a dessert topping?

And this interesting take on the ongoing cage match:

5. The “Brooksy!” Cheers

There’s something interesting about the dynamic in the Brooks-Bryson rivalry. On the internet, Koepka seems to have a higher approval rating. That may be true in person, too. But at tournaments, DeChambeau goes out of his way to engage with the fans. He likes being a showman. He’ll crack jokes he hopes people can hear and enjoys pulling driver knowing people will cheer and generally, when he’s outside the tunnel-vision focus of his shots, seeks the crowd’s approval. Koepka has no such intention; he coasts along, occasionally acknowledging the crowd but rarely interacting.

As a result, the in-person polling goes something like this: DeChambeau is beloved but polarizing. Koepka is admired but standoffish.

There’s no question that DeChambeau catches more snide comments from the spectators, though. All week, he seemed to do his best to embrace the “Let’s go Brooksy!” cheers. But I couldn’t help but think as he played the 18th hole on Sunday, fresh off a quadruple-bogey 8 at No. 17, it must have been a little tougher to hear them coming home. That’s going to be the enduring challenge of this rivalry — dealing with it when things aren’t going well on the course.

But, to borrow from Don Draper, that’s what the money’s for.

OK, first and foremost, isn't it "Brooksie", as opposed to "Brooksy"?  Can I get a ruling?

 I've basically ignored this weird intrusion up until now, but it was certainly weird:

7. The fan on the field

I was up by the 13th green when a shirtless man appeared in the distance, jogging down the fairway. Even without the appearance of a pseudo-streaker the hole had been the nuttiest of the day, yielding birdies and doubles at seemingly equal rates down the stretch. After witnessing an impressive cart dismount and tackle from one nearby officer, I made it back to the scene of the crime, where one gentleman happily sent me the video he’d taken of the incident. Here it is:

And this from a different angle:

A pretty sweet swing, no?

Shack had this background in his Quadrilateral newsletter:

The Streaker(ish)

While Bryson DeChambeau was giving kikuyu a nice push a grown man ran out into play to promote an end to homophobia. While not nude, he was clad in a rainbow themed shawl and did a dance. Heck of backswing, too.

Melanie Dinjaski wrote that “golf fans online didn't take long to work out who the barefoot streaker wearing a rainbow flag, boob tube, board shorts and flat cap was - YouTube and Instagram celebrity, Connor Murphy.”

Murphy has a half million Instagram followers and 2.4 million subscribers on YouTube. Just the kind of inclusive influencer the USGA would pay to act excited about the campaigns if he wasn’t quite so influential. He might not be one to tout the E Pluribus stuff, either.

You could almost come to the conclusion that people are weird...

This gets my vote for strangest article of the day:

U.S. Open 2021: Louis Oosthuizen’s seconds are adding up, but his heart hasn't been broken like other near-miss major winners

It's often the case that the writers of such articles don't write their headers, which one assumes to be the case here.  I make said assumption because the article itself recounts the major heartbreaks of Doug Sanders, Mike Donald and Rocco mediate, with only this mention of King Louis in the final 'graph:

I thought about that briefly on Sunday when seeing the look on Louis Oosthuizen’s face after he had finished second in a major for the sixth time. A moment before he holed his final, but meaningless, birdie putt on Torrey Pines’ 18th hole, NBC’s Dan Hicks commented that only two active players had more second-place finishes in majors than Oosthuizen: Phil Mickelson with 11 (including six at the U.S. Open) and Tiger Woods with seven. Of course, Mickelson won six majors and Woods won 15, so that has to dull the pain of those runner-up finishes considerably (Mickelson’s Winged Foot meltdown in 2006 aside, perhaps). There’s also Jack Nicklaus who had 19 second-place finishes. The 18 major wins no doubt dulled that pain considerably.

So, the evidence for the fact that his heart wasn't broken?  

More importantly, might the fact that his heart wasn't broken be part of the problem?  The knock on guys like Louis and Paul Casey might be that they're all too comfortable as bridesmaids.... But that interesting subject is not dealt with here.

 The dyspeptic Shack (as per Alan Shipnuck) had some thoughts on the NBC telecast:

A great overall day for NBC in attempting to cover a leaderboard which, at 2 p.m., saw 10 players tied or within a stroke of the lead. Dan Hicks was in command of the proceedings and the analysts did solid work enhancing the drama while analyzing decisions. Because of the rapid fire proceedings, we heard very few player-caddie chats and seemingly less from the on-course reporters. Though there were key contributions from Bones Mackay (explaining the streaker situation) and Roger Maltbie (on the Hughes ball-in-tree mess). All in all should be a big rating given the mid-round excitement and audience coming for swimming.

Other random stuff:

  • Do they have 20 cameras on the 18th green? It was another incredible and historic replay sequence, this time of Rahm’s birdie putt. It reinforced how Tommy Roy and Tom Randolph’s team has mastered the big moments. Just like Tiger’s putt in 2008, the different views kept coming and I don’t think we even saw the pond-cam replay? An amazing moment in golf history made better by the production team’s skill. Hopefully Comcast goes easy on those second and third beers put on the expense tab.
  • As feared, the lack of a 24/7 on-screen leaderboard at all times made it impossible to follow the number of players in contention.

I don't know about that.  The on-screen leaderboard works best when there's a small number of names shown.  I don't know that it's helpful when you have ten or more guys bunched within a shot or two.

  • For the final twosome, first tee announcer Bob Ford handed the mic to retiring USGA CEO Davis. This came on top of an early show tribute produced by the USGA, then followed by a booth visit where Davis was asked about the Jungle Bird moment and handled it well. But after Davis announced Oosthuizen and Hughes, there was a noticeable lack of acknowledgement by NBC regarding of the first tee lameness. That spoke volumes about an unprofessional attention grab.
  • NBC’s camera team did yeoman’s work trailing the amped-up Rahm off the 18th green. The eventual winner practically ran around the clubhouse area looking for a place to watch the conclusion, before going in a USGA trailer, then turning around and heading to the range after described as in “non-stop motion” by Hicks.
  • Speaking of cameras, NBC’s all-day effort was incredible given the stubborn grey skies making ball-tracking a tougher task. There were only one or two loose shots and so many great moments captured from all the right angles.
  • The initial coverage on Golf Channel and early hours on NBC was technically fine but felt like a tour event obligated to show shots and fill a broadcast window. Almost no imagination was shown in how to better set the final round table, particularly since the greens were noticeably firmer. We did not need Justin Leonard’s thoughts on whether he liked to play with a marker or not. DFL talk at a major? Good grief. 😴

I'm old enough to remember when Clifford Roberts didn't want us to see the front nine at Augusta, but a ten hour broadcast window?   A tad excessive, no?

But Shack is truly and justifiably dyspeptic about this epic fail:

The Trophy Ceremony Flyover

When they had 43 meetings to discuss this masculine show of Merican might, you have to wonder if anyone asked…

A) Can the organization known for Jungle Bird and still mopping up after Diana Murphy-helmed ceremonies really pull this off?

B) Given the already tight schedule for our friends at NBC, can we be sure the jets will be on time?

C) What if the jets don’t show up and we stand around awkwardly before a massive prime time audience that tuned in for swimming trials?

D) All of the above

Following Davis’ grand setup for F-18’s to flyover the trophy ceremony in a show of American military might, he turned to see nothing in the vicinity. We waited, then waited and watched Jon Rahm standing awkwardly before finally, after 25 seconds someone figured out it the jets were stuck in traffic.

“They’ll make their presence felt shortly here at Torrey Pines,” Steve Sands predicted before handing things over to USGA President Stu Francis to keep the ceremony moving.

Finally, almost two minutes after Davis pointed to the sky and as Francis teed up the crowd to cheer Davis on his way out the door, Sands went all Hervé Villechaize on us and announced da planes were coming.

Who doesn't love a gratuitous shout-out to Diana "Open Bar" Murphy?  let's face it, trophy ceremonies just haven't been the same since her term ended.

Eamon Lynch posts on Mike Davis' swan song, leading with this historic framing device:

On his last day, I met Davis in his makeshift office overlooking the 18th fairway, where in a few
hours he will oversee the crowning of the U.S. Open champion. His final day at the USGA will be more thrilling than his first in 1989. That was spent in an equipment trailer sorting through the magnetic components of the leaderboard to be used for the following year’s Open at Medinah; first the As, Bs and Cs, then the 1s, 2s, and 3s. Back then, players competing in the Open still had to pay $25 a week to the host club professional for range balls.

“I remember Jack Nicklaus writing a check,” Davis recalled, almost in disbelief. “But hey, they got half-price food so that was a good deal.” When he assumed more responsibility for running the U.S. Open at Baltusrol in ’93, the charges for balls and food ceased. That’s probably the last move Davis made that was universally praised by players at the U.S. Open.

So, what might Davis legacy be?  It's a tough one, beginning with his famous set-up fiasco's:

There has been plenty of Open drama during his tenure, of course. Not all for the right reasons. The rules fiasco that marred Dustin Johnson’s march to victory at Oakmont in ’16—a lengthy period during which the USGA was spit-roasted on social media and its leadership was AWOL—still stings. So too Shinnecock Hills in ’04, which became shorthand for mismanaging course conditions at an Open, a recurring theme of the Davis era. Were those the worst days? I asked. He shook his head.

“The day at Hazeltine in ’91 when we had people struck by lightning and somebody died,” he replied. “That was easily the worst day. All the other stuff goes away.”

There has been a lot of “other stuff,” an almost unbroken stream of criticism, much of it warranted, some of it reflexive griping by self-appointed Cassandras prophesying doom for the game. Complaints from players ran off his back as surely as water bounced off that 7th green at Shinnecock. “It’s been there going back a hundred years,” he said.

To me, his legacy will ultimately be determined by the outcome of the distance debate, which I suspect he gets as well:

He once asked Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer why that was during a dinner at Arnie’s house in Latrobe. “Their view was players in U.S. Opens have always been on edge because it’s set up so hard and they don’t like it when they feel like they’re not going to be made to look good,” he said. “There’s something to that. I think you can add on the governance part. People in this world do not like to be governed.”

There’s actually a healthy constituency in golf that has issues with a lack of governance, specifically as it relates to equipment advances and the increased distances players are hitting the ball. “If I have a regret of what I didn’t do, I wish this distance initiative had been further along,” he admitted.

And whose fault would that be?  This is a longer subject best deferred to a later time, but I fear that his abdication on the equipment issues will tarnish that legacy.  And, to be fair, it probably should...

Olympic Fever - That's a wrap, as the Olympic Golf Teams have been set in stone....  Yeah, OK, it is only an individual contest so there's no team, and it's set in stone only until players start dropping out but still, you're excited, right?

The full qualified field can be found here, but I'll just post the bottom thirty:

31. Thomas Pieters
32. Kalle Samooja
33. Matthias Schwab
34. Rasmus Hojgaard
35. Sami Valimaki
36. Jazz Janewattananond
37. Jhonattan Vegas
38. Francesco Molinari
39. Henrik Norlander
40. Rafa Cabrera Bello
41. Mito Pereira
42. Joachim B Hansen
43. Rory Sabbatini
44. Sepp Straka
45. Joost Luiten
46. Ryan Fox
47. C.T. Pan
48. Adrian Meronk
49. Maximilian Kieffer
50. Juvic Pagunsan
51. Wil Besseling
52. Ondrej Lieser
53. Scott Vincent
54. Gunn Charoenkul
55. Hurly Long
56. Fabrizio Zanotti
57. Rafael Campos
58. Gavin Kyle Green
59. Carl Yuan
60. Kristian K Johannessen

If you weren't excited previously, I'm sure you are now... C'mon, Juvic Pagunsan!  Not to mention Hurly Long!  Does it get any better than this?

Of course the best story buried within is Rory Sabbatini, who qualifies as a citizen of Slovakia...  Yeah, it's great when we see them gaming the system.

The powers that be have bequeathed us a dreadfully boring format with a strength of field that compares favorably to the Hero World Challenge.  Place the event on the other side of the world in the middle of a jam-packed schedule of big dollar events, and watch the guys squirm.  Having created such a mess, how can you pile on and make it even worse?  I think we have an answer:

Q. Secondly, I'm assuming you're going to go to the Olympics since you're qualified. Is that true?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: That is a decision -- my goal was to try to win this. I haven't really reached. I knew I had to try and qualify for the team. It was getting really bunched up with everyone behind me. I haven't really made a decision yet. It's something I was going to decide tonight or tomorrow morning.

Q. What would keep you away if you decide not to go?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Logistics are tricky. There's no opening ceremony, no experience of Japan. You're kind of locked down in your hotel. You can't go and see other venues or events. In terms of an actual Olympics, obviously, you're playing for some hardware, some gold medals and what not, but the overall experience, which I hear is really cool, isn't going to be there in Japan this year.

I don't know why any of them would go, except perhaps to avoid the pushback.

Scenes From Augusta -  In the last week, images have appeared indicating a substantial amount of work being done on the 11th and 15th holes at Augusta National.  I'm not sure I fully understand what's being done, but let's start with this image of the 11th hole:

Here's Geoff's brief description:

Eureka Earth has posted another photo of the major work taking place to sand-cap and update Augusta National, with the latest view showing what appears to be the start of a new back tee at the 11th hole (very upper right corner of Eureka’s image).

Currently 505 yards, a more cynical mind might conclude the club is not expecting a distance rollback any time soon.

At least Mike Davis is disappointed that we're not further along on the distance issue....  But the reality on the ground is that we're adding distance to Par-4's that are already 500+ yards long.  There no longer seems to be any limiting factor...

In this image from Eureka Earth they seem to have removed some of the trees added by Hootie up the right side of the hole:

About which Geoff adds this:

Looks like two trees remain judging by the well around them and the sand-capping work happening on the rest of the hole. Certainly progress in terms of restoring the old hole width and likely to produce some daring recovery shots. Not as far as some would go but this is exciting!

Here I'm not really sure what we're seeing:

I gather it's a new back tee on No. 15:

But the big ticket item: what appears to be a new back tee on the 15th hole based on the long platform extending into the 11th. Plus lots of sandcapping work elsewhere in the vicinity, including possibly around the 14th green.

The 11th tee shot will be impacted by this new tee, but barring new plantings or old ones coming back—it’s Augusta National after all—it looks like there is a dwindling tree population down the right side compared to the 2019 view below. I can’t quite figure out the carry number to get past the clump of pines remaining, but it would appear drives of a certain distance will be met with a much wider landing area.

I’m trying to contain my excitement until we know more but this is…exciting, unless trees are sitting in boxes just out of view.

It seems that the Lords of Augusta are also disappointed that Mike Davis isn't further along with the distance issue, but they're not holding their breath.

 As a wise man once said:

“The Old Course at St Andrews, the home of golf, is different, because the course isn’t as long and the greens are pretty easy to putt and don’t have nearly as much slope,” Azinger said. “Augusta’s greens are frightfully fast, and they can stick the pins two paces from the edge.

“Augusta can always be defended. St Andrews is in trouble.”

The fruits of our lack of governance might be on full display in July 2022.  I could see why Mike Davis might not have wanted to stick around for that....

I'm not sure exactly when, but I will be back with more later in the week.

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