Monday, June 14, 2021

Weekend Wrap

 We'll do the wrap thing, then gently turn our gaze to the West Coast.

Scenes From Bizarro World - It may seem churlish to pile on over a last-minute, fill in event, but what just happened.  This, according to the Golf Digest header writers:

Garrick Higgo wins the Palmetto Championship with a little luck and a whole lot of talent

Move over, Collin. You too, Viktor. Wolffie, Zalatoris, y’all need to clear some space. For we have yet another star of barely legal drinking age on the PGA Tour.

Garrick Higgo, a 22-year-old lefty from South Africa with a toothy smile and a killer instinct, won the Palmetto Championship on Sunday, albeit, it must be said, with some serious assistance from Chesson Hadley.

The link on the GD homepage, as well as the article's URL, go with the "A Star is Born", a tad trite and unproven for this observer's taste.  But even the watered down version strains credulity...  I mean, a little luck?

But details like Hadley’s six final-round bogeys, including each of the last three holes, will fade from memory. The enduring image from ruggedly beautiful Congaree Golf Club will be that of Higgo, erasing a six-shot deficit to win just his second career start on the PGA Tour. He’s the youngest South African to win on tour since Gary Player—who’s been a frequent sounding board for his countryman.

Not from Hadley's memory, I'm guessing.  Fact is, everything from this week will be quickly forgotten, I'm even wondering if the results will ultimately be credited to the Canadian Open, assuming that event returns next season.

Seems pretty clear that the Golf.com header crew might have actually watched the tourney:

Leaders collapse at Congaree, leaving Garrick Higgo as the newest Tour champion

Forget the congratulatory calls from Gary Player, this smells far more like Ben Curtis....Not that I'm saying the kid has no game,:

Higgo winning, on its own, is no true shock. DataGolf ranked him as the 132nd-best player in the world entering the week. He’s played near a PGA Tour average level for most of the last 18 months, winning three times on the European Tour in the past year. In his first non-major PGA Tour start, he’s earned full membership for the rest of this year and the two seasons that follow. Life is good for the 22-year-old, who will now move into the top 40 in the Official World Golf Ranking.

It's a bit unfair, but can be amusing to look at how headers age.  For instance, this Saturday header from Golfweek seems the print journalism equivalent of the announcer's curse:

Chesson Hadley doesn't buckle playing with world No. 1, tightens grip on Palmetto Championship lead

 Yeah, seemed like a good idea at the time.

To the extent anything is remembered from this week, it's likely to be the oddities.  Such as, this guy (from Dylan Dethier's Monday Finish feature):

WHAT WE’RE HEARING

The explosion of a Ping driver.

If you didn’t know the name Wilco Nienaber before this week, you’re forgiven. If you didn’t know the name Wilco Nienaber before the previous sentence, well, you’re also forgiven. While Higgo left the week with the trophy, fellow South African Nienaber turned just as many heads in a T14 finish in which he was able to showcase his prodigious length.

Just how far does the 21-year-old Nienaber hit it? Really far. Sounds-different far. Farther-than-Bryson-DeChambeau far. On the two measured holes, Nienaber averaged 361.4 yards for the week. On all measured holes he averaged 337.4. Both led the field. He hit 200 mph ball speed, the first time that barrier has been broken on Tour this season. And Nienaber isn’t some long-drive macho man; he’s 6’2″ and slender, and doesn’t even look like he’s swinging particularly hard to create this ridiculous speed. He just hits the absolute hell out of the golf ball.

How's that Distance Insight project coming along?  But perhaps Bryson should be looking over his shoulder:


This is the scariest bit:

The 21-year-old from South Africa, who is playing in this week’s Palmetto Championship at
Congaree, first made headlines during last November’s Joburg Open when he smashed a 439-yard drive that didn’t hit a cart path. There was no funny business involved, no noise, no wobbly-legs finish—just a hyper-athletic, super-wide golf swing from a 6-foot-2 young man with gangly arms, rapid hips and a preternatural gift for speed. His arms appear unburdened by whatever syrupy matter hinders the movement of other tour pros. They’re simply moving faster. And it’s all natural.

“It’s not something I’ve worked on, at all,” Nienaber said. “I can definitely get longer.”

The resulting ball flight is a different, too. Whereas DeChambeau plays a high draw—and Cameron Champ, another 190-pluser with easy speed, hits a low, spinny ball­—Nienaber games a mid-height cut that hardly seems to be spinning at all. If DeChambeau’s distance comes largely from carry, and Champ’s from roll, Nienaber’s gets both. It flies miles, it lands and then it rolls, and it rolls some more, once all the way to 439 yards.

Geez, what happens when he discovers protein shakes? 

The other memory will be the unfortunate Mark Hensby.  A Tour Rabbit for sure, he made just a wee error, but one that came with a large price tag.  We'll use the Tour Confidential panel to explain and opine:

6. Mark Hensby, during the first round of this week’s Palmetto Championship, played a wrong ball for five holes and was forced to take a two-stroke penalty for each hole that he did — meaning that his 74 became an 84. While we tip our cap to Hensby’s honesty in
reporting the violation, is this a rule that should be reconsidered?

Zak: No way! How did he not notice earlier? We have rarely seen such an egregious mistake go uncorrected. I’m sure Hensby felt silly after the fact, but it is what it is. Make sure it’s your own ball.

Sens: Not in tournament golf. No way.

Piastowski: Keep the rule. It opens up a Pandora’s Box if it were to change. It falls along the lines of playing a different style of baseball — some have higher seams and would help a pitcher. But, man, doesn’t it just all sound funny that Hensby was dinged 10 shots for possibly nothing more than a dot?

Bastable: The rules are the rules, and 10-shot penalties are yet one more reason why golf is the greatest game.

I'm not finding the piece that I initially read on this, but let me fill in a detail or two.  The ball he found in play was apparently another players' ball that he inadvertently picked up off the putting green, but the markings were similar except for one tiny dot that was apparently quite easy to miss.  There is a valid reason for the one-ball rule, though you'd think the combination of manufacturers (here I'm thinking of markings) and caddies, who you'd think would quarantine the supply of game balls, would preclude such mistakes from happening.  Of course, you'd be wrong...

You'll not be surprised to see Mike Bamberger take a broader perspective on the matter:

Bamberger: It has become way too easy to blame the rulebook every time a player breaks the rules. It’s not the rulebook. Every rule in it is there for a reason. The easiest fix for this rules issue is one that only a tiny number of us like: At the elite level, a governing body or tournament sponsor should hand out game balls. It works well in tennis, baseball, football, basketball, soccer, handball, jai alai, lacrosse, field hockey, ping pong and other sports.

As I've long noted, golf is the only sport in which the player brings his own balls.... Of course, I have no idea who provides the stone in curling...

Longshot Week -  It's not every week that the winner of a major tour is someone your humble blogger has never heard of:

As the final group stood on the first tee at Lake Merced Golf Club on Sunday, the last rays of sunshine beaming ahead of their biggest round of their lives, Matilda Castren, Min Lee and Lauren Kim combined for just one top-10 finish in 146 career starts. Thirteen players outside of
the 2:10 p.m. tee time lurked within five of the lead if the inexperienced group faltered.

Castren held that the lone top-10 from the 2020 Drive On Championship at Reynolds Lake Oconee, her best showing in 15 career LPGA Tour starts. The 26-year-old from Finland started the final round of the LPGA Mediheal Championship two off the lead and stepped aside before teeing off to fist bump friend Bianca Pagdanganan, sharing a laugh and well wishes before venturing into the mist at Lake Merced.

The motivational words fueled Castren to push through the fog with a final-round 65 to win the LPGA Mediheal Championship at a tournament record 14-under par, becoming the first Finnish woman to win on the LPGA.

“It’s been a dream of mine to win since I was a little girl, and to see it happen and just to win, it’s such an amazing feeling," Castren said. “There is nothing that compares to it.”

OK, it does have Solheim Cup implications, but that's down the road a bit.

There was a minor kerfuffle involving Lexi Thompson, the key word being "minor":

Here's Shack's take:

Lexi Thompson is T15 after two rounds at Lake Merced, not quite a week removed from losing the U.S. Women’s Open at nearby Olympic Club.

Given that Golf Channel’s LPGA Tour coverage teeters on sycophantic at times, it’s pretty amazing to pass on a post-round interview that is also a fine chance to display some logos. But as feared with the recent Naomi Osaka situation, coupled with some anti-media sentiment in golf, it seems we are likely to see more players pass on these generally inane chats. And even when they don’t pass, episodes like this put interviewers on notice to bring plenty of massage oil to future post-round therapy sessions.

Fundamentally, I don't much care.  Still, the LPGA has to be the scrappy underdog, and that necessarily involves greater accessibility.  If Lexi was so psychologically unprepared for a hard-hitting Todd Lewis interrogation, then she's not sufficiently mature to play elite-level golf.  What?  OK, going forward I'll stick to things you didn't already...

Mike Purkey, though, does care and has some wonderful historical precedents to cite:

An outbreak is among us, and let’s hope it’s contained for fear of uncontrolled spread. And it can only be curbed with attitude. The disease is unprofessionalism, and it has reared its immature and troubling head in an unseemly and public way.

Lexi Thompson lost a five-shot lead Sunday on the back nine in the final round at the U.S. Women’s Open at Olympic Club. She’s not the first to do such a thing on the shores of Lake Merced. Arnold Palmer coughed up a seven-stroke advantage on the incoming nine in the 1966 U.S. Open before eventually losing to Billy Casper in a playoff the next day. Palmer didn’t duck and run after the round. Although he was understandably shocked and deflated, he stuck around to patiently answer reporters’ questions. He was a professional, and a consummate one, at that.

Thompson’s agent did her no favors by calling a halt to the media interviews after only two questions after the final round. If he thought he was protecting her, he’s wrong. What’s more, it’s not his job or his jurisdiction in that situation. Thompson, who is 26, might not have been required to face the media, but she does have an obligation as a professional athlete. This was her 15th U.S. Open, and she has been answering reporters’ questions all that time.

OK, perhaps that's setting the bar a tad high, as who among us can withstand a comparison to the King?  But how does she come off compared to those with feet of clay:

If Thompson wants another example, she only has to turn to Greg Norman, who infamously lost a six-stroke lead in the final round of the 1996 Masters. It was by far the most devastating day of Norman’s career.

Yet, he sat in the interview room in the media center at Augusta National, where every seat was taken and journalists were standing in the back and seated in the aisles and in the front. He answered every single question until no more were left to ask. He was equal parts honest and gracious. Norman’s standing in the game – as a person, not as a player – rose exponentially that day.

Yes, for all of Norman's nonsense (I'd be happy if he would merely stop with the topless Instagrams), he was always a gracious loser.  Of course, Purkey can't help but pile on the enablers:

And Thompson doesn’t need any apologists, either, a role Morgan Pressel was all too happy to perform. Pressel, a contemporary of Thompson’s as a player, was the lead analyst for the NBC/Golf Channel telecast of the final round of the Women’s Open and was asked by Rich Lerner in the time leading to the playoff whether Thompson “caved to the pressure.”

Pressel sounded downright indignant. “Caved?!” she spat out.

Lerner immediately backed off. " 'Caved' is a harsh word,” he said before lobbing a softer pitch Pressel’s way. “Maybe ‘succumbed’?”

Pressel shuffled and stammered and never answered the question. Instead, she said, “It’s hard out there.”

That’s her explanation? It’s hard? It’s supposed to be hard. It’s the Women’s Open. Pressel is fairly new to television, but don’t make the excuse for an epic collapse by saying it’s hard. Champions overcome hard.

She concluded with, “I think all in all, it was an encouraging week for Lexi.”

I've been completely underwhelmed by Morgan Pressel's turn as lead analyst.  Purkey has saved me the job of citing the specifics of her analytic mishaps, but it's all delivered in an unpleasingly nasal voice.  I'm sure that's have me pegged as a misogynist though, in my own defense, I was actually watching women's golf in the first place.  I'd like to think that at the very least exempts me from the Local Reeducation Camp and sends me directly to Sectional...

Torrey On Our Minds - Just a few bits about the week ahead, but we'll of course we'll have wall-to-wall coverage as the week unfolds.  Let's start with that TC panel, and the question on everyone's mind:

1. U.S. Open week is here. The year’s third major tees off Thursday at Torrey Pines in San Diego, and maybe no storyline is bigger than the winner of the last major. Phil Mickelson, who won the PGA Championship at the age of 50, returns to his hometown in search of the
one major that has escaped him. On a conference call to preview NBC’s coverage of the tournament, Mickelson’s former caddie, Jim “Bones” Mackay said: “It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if he got right in the mix.” How would you handicap Phil’s chances at Torrey?

Sean Zak: I’d put his chances at extremely slim. Lightning struck once at Kiawah. It was amazing. Torrey will play incredibly different.

Josh Sens: As Zak said, slim to none, and Slim just dropped a couple of shots trying to chop out of deep kikuyu rough. I’d love to be wrong on this one but would be willing to place money that I’m not.

Nick Piastowski: I’m a bit more optimistic than Sean and Josh — but still pretty pessimistic. No one gave Phil a shot at Kiawah, either, and there he was hoisting the Wanamaker on Sunday. Maybe there really is something to his new focus techniques. But Torrey has tripped up Lefty over his past nine events there, and a U.S. Open isn’t exactly going to play any easier.

Alan Bastable: Whenever there are expectations around Phil, he tends to underperform. The reverse is also true. This is why he will likely miss the cut at Torrey — and then win another Masters when he’s 60.

Michael Bamberger: I think Bones had it exactly right: It wouldn’t surprise me to see him in the mix. To see him win would be way beyond amazing and unlikely — but not, of course, impossible.

I assume that when Jesus turned the water into wine, that the disciples expected him to do it the following week as well.... 

Unmentioned by the writers are a couple of factoids that folks might want to bear in mind.  Yes, it's a home game and Phil has had success on a golf course called Torrey Pines, but that's of no more than borderline relevance these days:

There is most certainly a before and after to the complicated love affair—and eventual falling out—between Phil Mickelson and the Torrey Pines golf courses. There is even a date of demarcation: Feb. 11, 2001.

On that Sunday, Mickelson, a lifelong San Diegan, won the then-Buick Invitational (now Farmers Insurance Open) for the third time in a dreamy nine-year span. The victory was so Phil-like and bizarre, in that he scorched the Torrey Pines South Course for a six-under-par 66 in the final round to get into a playoff with Davis Love III and Frank Lickliter. And then he won with a double bogey on the third extra hole after Mickelson and Lickliter both hit their first drives into the canyon on the 17th hole. Lickliter further butchered the job with a three-putt for triple, and that was it. Tour win No. 18 for Mickelson at the time.

Lucky as it was, that was the last time—now 20 years ago­— that Mickelson lifted a trophy at Torrey Pines. Three months after, bulldozers arrived on the South Course to render Mickelson’s playground all but unrecognizable. Architect Rees Jones was tasked by the Friends of Torrey Pines group to redesign the South in a way that would attract the USGA to bring a U.S. Open to San Diego. Everything fell into place, and in 2002, the municipal course was awarded the 2008 U.S. Open.

 From there it gets complicated:

But don’t take all the hype as gospel. The history between man and course is far more tangled—and compelling—than that. From that time of his first win to the more recent struggles on the South Course, for his disdain for Rees Jones’ work and getting knocked out of his planned redesign of Torrey North by a government technicality, Mickelson and Torrey indeed have a love-hate relationship. Neither would be the same without the other, but there’s pain that comes with that intimacy, too, and they’ve had to grudgingly come to accept each other, wounds and scars be damned.

Tod Leonard mas much more at that link, including some fun bits on the 2008 Open, when the USGA paired by world rankings (I think for the first time, though there's no reason to trust that memory), resulting in this photo:


Though Leonard appears to elide the most telling detail, to wit, that Phil has ceased playing in the Farmers' Insurance event because he no longer considers Torrey a course on which he can successfully compete.    That seems telling, no?

They're not yet ready to make actual picks, but they do name some names in this Q&A:

2. Few observers, if any, predicted Mickelson’s victory at the PGA a month ago. Mickelson was 50 — and Julius Boros, at 48, had previously been the oldest player to win a major. Mickelson also hadn’t had a top 10 since last August, or a win since February of 2019. Still, maybe we shouldn’t have been surprised — he’s now won six majors, and over 50 times worldwide. With that in mind, is there another player who’s flying under the radar this week who maybe shouldn’t be?

Zak: The other San Diego boy. Xander Schauffele! He’s never really played well at Torrey Pines, but he has dominated (without a win) at the U.S. Open his entire career. When he finishes in the top five again, all I’ll say is you were warned!

Good news, folks.  I don't actually have to call BS on Sean for picking the guy getting the most media coverage going in to this week, because one of his colleagues does below. 

Sens: Going a bit farther under the radar here with Branden Grace, who is back in form after a few off seasons and whose style of play is suited to find-the-fairway and grind-it-out requirements of a U.S. Open.

Piastowski: Adam Scott seems to fit this profile. At the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey, where he played the first two rounds in the 1-2-3-in-the-world grouping, he tied for 26th. He tied for 10th at the Farmers Insurance Open earlier this year at Torrey. And like Phil, he’s a bit older, but the talent remains.

Bastable: If Zak is allowed to take the world No. 6 as an “under-the-radar” threat, I’m going with the world No. 12: Mr. Webb Simpson, mostly because I pick him in virtually every major pool. No matter how’s he playing, dude has a knack for showing up at the majors, especially the U.S. Open, where he has finished T16 or better in the past three. Book him for another strong week at Torrey.

Bamberger: Branden Grace is always under the radar, and I‘m right there with you, Sean.

When I say most media coverage, I refer to items such as this:

U.S. Open 2021: How a 'reprogrammed' Xander Schauffele plans to turn his major near-misses into a breakthrough win

I still don't know what to think of Scauffele, though he's certainly compiled a record in majors of note:

The other wrinkle for Schauffele is just as obvious. Not only is he trying to snap a streak of near-wins, he’s building a résumé in majors that is both highly impressive and already sprinkled with the kind of disappointment that his frequent at-home playing partner went through. Fellow San Diego native Phil Mickelson had three seconds and five thirds in 42 majors before he won the 2004 Masters at age 33.

In only 16 career majors for Schauffele, he can boast of having top-10 finishes in half of them. Six are top fives, and in a rare display of versatility on all courses and conditions, Schauffele already has a top-10 result in each of the Big Four. In four U.S. Opens, he hasn’t finished worse than sixth.

Comparisons can only go so far, though.  Phil had won a gaudy 22 Pga Tour events before his breakthrough at the 2004 Masters, a record Xander can't even contemplate (he's got four at this juncture, none by more than a single stroke, and couple featuring small fields).

But it's this photo with his father Stefan, who also doubles as his coach, that perhaps explains much:

I'm pretty certain that the original thirteen rules of golf promulgated in 1744 contained an absolute proscription on manbuns....  And, in the unlikley event they didn't, what the hell were they thinking?

And, just because it's the X-man, the rough seems...well, healthy:

Back to the TC panel, for a drearily predictable bit:

3. Torrey Pines, the 2008 U.S. Open site and No. 5 on our recently released list of the best municipal golf courses in America, will have another four days in the national spotlight. Thirteen years ago, only Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate got around 72 holes under par — and by one, at that — before Woods won in a Monday playoff. How do you see the world’s best tackling Torrey this time around?

Zak: Bomb and gouge. Driver everywhere. The modern game. It makes sense.

Sens: Bombing, for sure. Though I wonder how many will be able to gouge as successfully as Bryson did at Winged Foot. He’s a different animal, and Winged Foot is a different course, where Bryson played strategically to angles that allowed him to run the ball up and use the flanges on certain greens to his advantage. I don’t think Torrey will allow for that as much. On the other hand, Torrey’s greens are far less intimidating. So all the more reason to tee it high and let it fly, especially on Torrey’s (relatively) gettable par-5s.

Piastowski: I agree with Sean and Josh. The USGA said they wouldn’t take steps to Bryson-proof the course so it’ll be bombs away. But I think your winner may play somewhat more like Patrick Reed did back in January, who was excellent after the tee, too.

Bastable: A bombers’ paradise perhaps, but the champion at week’s end will be the player who best manages the “bumpy” (by Tour standards) poa greens.

There aren't many angles to be conserved with at Torrey, so they'll be in full send mode.   The greens for sure, but I also like those with the strength to play well from the rough (cough**Bryson** cough).  Once again Mikey Bams gets stand alone treatment:

Bamberger: Irons and fairway woods off the tee, and mid-iron approach shots into these wicked greens, always below the hole. And for God’s sake — stay out of the rough. A jest: 1989 is calling, wondering what has happened to the U.S. Open. As others have noted, all of golf is pretty much a three-club test now.

Amusingly, Phil tried playing without a driver in 2008, and couldn't find a fairway.  It's a long course in heavy air, so they'll have to play a certain number of drivers, methinks.

This last on Torrey is silly, but amusingly silly:

4. Prop bet time: Spieth or Rory? Who ya got?

Zak: Spieth 100 times over. Mentally, he bounces back better than anyone. Rory seems to be the opposite of that.

Sens: I’ve given up trying to predict what Rory will do. But we can pretty much count on Spieth grinding his way to a score somehow. I’m with Zak.

Piastowski: Spieth. Rory himself doesn’t sound like a confident player. Of course, this is when he’ll go out and win by 10.

Bastable: LOL, it’s like everyone forgot Rory won just three starts ago on a meaty U.S. Open-ready course. McIlroy FTW!

Bamberger: With play money, Spieth. With actual money, Rory.

Mike, if you're inclined to put actual money or Rory, I imagine you're very popular at the poker table... 

Isn't this the kind of question that demands "None of the above"?  With a gun to my head, the answer has to be Spieth, because you can at least take comfort in the fact that he'll keep grinding...

Just one last bit involving Tiger, a story you've undoubtedly heard by now:

Tiger Woods rejects an NBC Sports invite to be part of U.S. Open at Torrey Pines broadcast

I don't exactly buy the explanation that he doesn't want to distract from the event, but I have no problem with him not wanting to sit in that broadcast booth for 2-4 days, and I'm also pretty convinced that, unlike Phil, he wouldn't add much.

But I also understand that NBC asked him to do the voiceover for their lead-in, and I just don't get why he couldn't be bothered doing that minimal amount.  It's the scene of one of his most iconic accomplishments, and yet he just can't be bothered...  We keep hearing about the new Tiger, yet I keep seeing the same selfish dick.

We shall part here, but lots more to cover as the week unfolds.

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