Wednesday, July 21, 2021

Midweek Musings

Yes, our Midweek Musings and the Wednesday Game typically conflict, but not this post-Open week.  Fairview's Women's Member-Guest has us on a mini-road trip, all the way to White Plains, so what shall we discuss? 

Open Championship Leftovers - We had his tunnel run, but otherwise went light on Jordan yesterday.  This header seems, well, understated:

But the eventual two-stroke margin between Morikawa, the new “champion golfer of the year,” and Spieth, the runner-up, begs an obvious question: How long did it take the man who would finish second to put the sloppy bogey-bogey climax to his Saturday afternoon on the links of Royal St. George’s into a context he could manage going forward? Amidst an uncharacteristic fit of pique, Spieth had slunk off to practice his putting without offering any explanation of the two-footer he had just missed on the 18th green.

How does one explain the inexplicable?

But there are some interesting takes on Jordan, including this pretty good appeal to authority:

What made Spieth’s late lapses on day three so surprising is that the 27-year-old is one of the more mature members of golf’s elite and typically the master of what four-time Open champion Bobby Locke used to call “the art of playing badly well.” Former European Ryder Cup player Paul McGinley is another impressed by Spieth’s ability to make the shots and putts that matter most.

“Jordan finds a way to make the putts for pars that really count,” says the Irishman. “The ones that keep a score going when you are struggling a little bit.”

“I’ve never seen a player prepare better to hit a shot than Jordan,” says former PGA champion Wayne Grady. “His focus is so exact. He reminds me of a darts player homing in on his target.”

Bobby Locke apparently was so good at playing badly well, that the PGA had to ban him.  Yup, that was really a thing...

While Jordan stiffed the media on Saturday, he was as gracious in defeat as we've come to expect of the young man:

There was time too for some kind words for the new champion. Warming to his theme, the ‘real’
Jordan Spieth was fast replacing the strangely grumpy Saturday evening version.

“Collin swings the club beautifully, gets it in positions that make it very, very difficult to not start the ball online,” he said. “So he’s going to be very consistent tee-to-green. With the shots he's hit and the putts he's holed, he's not afraid of high pressure situations and winning a major championship. Obviously, there's a bright future ahead. That's pretty special. I think winning one major can happen to a lot of people playing really good golf in one week. But winning two or more, he's proven that this stage is where he wants to be.”

But my Sunday reaction to Jordan was quite different, one echoed by the gentleman here:

My specific reaction was a tad harsher, to wit, that if you wear a shirt that ugly, you don't deserve to win.... 

I've actually liked Jordan's style sense over the years, as reflected in his UA togs.  Some will find it too muted, featuring too many solids and navy/grey combos, but "classic" can be a synonym for "boring".  And by the way, His Saturday shirt wasn't quite as bad, though in retrospect the trend line seems clear:

I could live with that one, but Sundays are different... If it goes well, you'll be looking at video of the shirt in perpetuity.  As just one example, you can't convince me that Larry Mize hasn't lived a life of regret:

Though, amusingly, Jack did his best to distract from Mize's regrettable choice:


I guess Jack didn't get the memo that it wasn't the 70's any longer.... That hopefully brings the fashion blogging to a conclusion.

I do have just a couple of short bits on the winner... First this:

The Open 2021: We put Collin Morikawa’s iron accuracy to the test, and the results were freakish

He was pretty freakish on Sunday, that's for sure, but whatcha got?

The concept was to measure Morikawa’s accuracy compared to that of other tour players. On its own, not a big deal. Except here we wanted to see if Morikawa’s 6-iron was more precise than a
tour player’s pitching wedge. In a sense, it’d be like giving someone a crayon and someone else a can of spray paint and asking both to stay within the same lines of a coloring book. Yet when we posed the idea to Morikawa at our cover shoot outside New York City the day after the 2020 U.S. Open, he mostly just asked when we needed him to start.

To summarize, a PGA Tour player on average hits his pitching wedge to within 23 feet. In 12 swings with a 6-iron, Morikawa averaged 11.3 feet. Perhaps even more revealing from the video is how many times Morikawa reacted to a swing as if he hit it off the planet—”Nope,” he’d say—and the ball landed a mere 10 feet or so away. Fair to say the guy grades himself on a different curve. Justifiably so.

That sound you hear is both of my readers screaming "Small sample size", but still...

Though this piece of confirmation comes from the Tour's site:


 Yeah, he's pretty good with a club in his hands... at least thirteen of them.

Now, there is one arcane bit that has caught my eye, captured herein:

Specifically that second item involving Bobby Jones.  It strikes me as odd, because Jones was the original Best Player to Never Win a Major ("BPTNWAM").  I mean, OK, technically Old Tom Morris would have been the original BPTNWAM in 1860, because we can't designate a BPTNWAM before there were, yanno, majors....

From his Wikipedia page, here's Jones' record in his majors, which include the two Amateurs as well as the Opens:


While in the sepia-toned rearview mirror Jones was the ultimate big-game hunter, the reality is that, until that 2023 U.S. Open at Inwood Country Club on Long Island, folks were wondering whether Jones would ever win anything.   Though it does look like he went on a bit of a heater in 1930.

I haven't visited The Loop, a Golf Digest feature, in some time, but they seem to not know much history.  For instance, this on that by now famous Will Zalatoris putt:

British Open 2021: This is it, this is the worst putt in golf history

I do hope that their tongue was firmly embedded in their cheek, because there was no vacancy in that category:


Later in life, Doug Sanders said he sometimes went as long as five minutes without thinking of that putt...

There's also this:

British Open 2021: Francesco Molinari's quad-bogey 7 is the most painful video you'll see this week

At least there they limited it to this week....  But still, Thomas Bjorn is the far more painful, because of the ramifications.

But I've no quibble with their Tyrell Hatton videos:

The guys seem happy to have the fans back:

He should be good fun at the Ryder Cup...

Got time for some udder stuff?

Venue Notes -  Lots of news on this front, including this on the Open Championship:

After impressing on its return to the rotation in 2019, Royal Portrush is believed to be the front-
runner to host The Open Championship in 2025.

The Co Antrim links received unanimous acclaim for its hosting of the Major two years ago, which was won by Offaly’s Shane Lowry, and could be awarded the event again only six years after staging it previously.

While it is understood a formal agreement between the R&A and Royal Portrush has not yet been reached to host the tournament on the Dunluce Links for the third time in the club’s history, talks behind the scenes are believed to be progressing well.

The 2019 Open was a sell-out, bringing 237,500 fans from around the world to the Dunluce Links and generating roughly £100m in revenue for the Northern Ireland economy.

This is from a Belfast paper, but the use of their favorite son seems unduly hurtful, given the week he had in 2019.   But it's a great venue and they're certainly not going back to Ayrshire anytime soon...

But the buried lede is Muirfield, to which they don't seem anxious to return anytime soon.... Stay tuned.

But the bigger news concerns the USGA and its amateur events:

Bandon Dunes Golf Resort to Host 13 USGA Championships

Long-term relationship kicks off with 2022 U.S. Junior Amateur Championship

LIBERTY CORNER, N.J. (July 20, 2021) – The USGA and Bandon Dunes Golf Resort today announced an agreement that will bring 13 USGA amateur championships to the
resort over 23 years. The relationship will begin with the 74th U.S. Junior Amateur in 2022 and run through the 2045 U.S. Junior Amateur and U.S. Girls’ Junior Championships, with eight different championships being played at the resort, including the U.S. Amateur, U.S. Women’s Amateur, the Walker Cup Match and the Curtis Cup Match.

The 2022 U.S. Junior Amateur will be conducted from July 25-30, with Bandon Dunes serving as the host course for both stroke play and match play, and Bandon Trails serving as the second stroke-play course. Dates and courses for the other championships will be announced in the future.

The resort will host both the U.S. Women’s Amateur and U.S. Amateur in 2032 and again in 2041, marking the first time those two original USGA championships will be contested on the same site in the same calendar year. The resort will also host the U.S. Junior Amateur and U.S. Girls’ Junior in 2045, which will mark the fourth time those championships will be conducted at the same facility in the same year. The agreement also includes the 2029 Walker Cup Match and the 2038 Curtis Cup Match.

How about those Walker Cup venues?  The only limiting factor on my swooning over this news is the 2025 Walker Cup at Cypress Point.   Good stuff.

Not a Good Look - Sheesh, does he need the money that badly?

JASON KOKRAK LATEST HIGH PROFILE NAME TO JOIN GOLF SAUDI AS AN

AMBASSADOR AHEAD OF THE 2021 OPEN

Two-time PGA TOUR winner and rising star joins Golf Saudi as the organisation’s second new international ambassador of 2021

14 July, 2021, The Royal St George's Golf Club, Kent, UK: Two-time PGA TOUR winner and world #24, Jason Kokrak, is the second international ambassador to join Golf Saudi in 2021, following on from icon of the game Gary Player in April.

One of the in-form players of the last twelve months, American Jason Kokrak will support Golf Saudi in its journey to bring the great game of golf to new audiences both globally and within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.


Exit question:  Is this OK as long as he doesn't play at Doral or Turnberry?

That's all for today, kids.  See you further down the line.

 

 

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