Weekend Wrap - Monday Finish Edition

 I'll not keep you long, but the man that can't win (well, one of them) did, and a few other loose ends.

Finau In Full - It's for sure hard to win out there, but https://golfweek.usatoday.com/2021/08/23/tony-finau-wins-northern-trust-playoff-cameron-smith/when this guy's putter behaves...

Down to the final three events in the FedEx Cup playoffs, his deadline was looming to win a tournament in the PGA Tour’s 2020-21 “super season” of 50 events and to convince U.S. Ryder Cup

captain Steve Stricker that he was deserving of a spot on the 12-man team.

On a Monday finish thanks to Hurricane Henri, Finau hunted down World No. 1 Jon Rahm by shooting 6-under 65 at Liberty National and defeated Cameron Smith in a sudden-death playoff with a par on the first extra hole to win the Northern Trust for his first victory on the PGA Tour since 2016.

Finau, who trailed Rahm and Smith by two strokes entering the final round, birdied two of the first four holes to grab a share of the lead, but he flubbed a shot from greenside bunker at the par-5 eighth and made bogey to drop two strokes behind Rahm.

 Which is the kind of thing that has followed him around, though at least they have a plan for such events:

On an episode of his podcast, “Let’s Get It,” which he hosts with his swing instructor, Boyd Summerhays, Finau explained how he kept his poise and delivered in the clutch.

“What are three things we never do?” Finau said to Summerhays rhetorically. “We don’t panic, we don’t panic and we don’t panic.”

I did have the golf on, but was distracted and missed this tear:

Finau played a five-hole stretch beginning at No. 12 in 5 under, which included a 3-foot eagle

putt at 13, to catapult past Rahm. That brought to mind another of his favorite sayings, courtesy of World Golf Hall of Famer Billy Casper.

“He said the loudest noise in golf is the swift change of momentum,” Finau said. “When I read that I knew exactly what he was talking about.”

There certainly was no noise to be had out there, with the absence of spectators a throwback to the good old days of 2020....Perhaps the only thing that the man that can't get it done on Sundays needed was, yanno, that Monday finish?

I don't have all that much to add, except to note that this now moves Finau into the sixth and final automatic qualifying slot for the Ryder Cup, guaranteeing his qualification, notwithstanding that there remains one week before it's official.  Even should Xander, Jordan or, God forbid, Harris English win next week and leapfrog him, based upon his strong play in Paris there is a 0% chance of him not being selected by Captain Stricker.

A couple of odd notes is all I have but, like Finau finally getting it done, this was only a matter of time:

🚨BREAKING@McIlroyRory drops out of the top 15 in the world rankings for the first time since November 2009!!!

Take a moment and think about that... #OWGR

— Nosferatu (@VC606) August 23, 2021

OK, completely arbitrary and all, but the guy just hasn't been much of a player in recent times.

Dylan Dethier gets himself way too absorbed by Jordan Spieth's God-awful round, offering a range of prisms through which to interpret said day.  First, the details:

Spieth, Patton Kizzire and Zach Johnson were first off No. 1. Spieth made bogey at No. 1 but got it back with birdie at No. 4. Ho-hum. Entering the week at No. 2 in the FedEx Cup, Spieth’s

ticket was already well-punched to next week’s BMW. Still, he had 14 holes still to play.

Holes 5-8 at Liberty National are two par-4s and two par-5s. If you go through ’em 4-4-4-4, you’ve done well. Spieth went 5-5-5-5. At No. 9, things got worse. He tugged his tee shot into the left water, dropped, then hit his next shot into the water, too. He walked off with triple-bogey 7 to make the turn at five-over 41.

At No. 10, Spieth missed wide right off the tee. He took another drop — his third in two holes — and chopped out to the fairway. Then he found the front bunker from 180 yards, failed to get up-and-down and walked off with another triple-bogey 7. Another bogey at 12 left him nine over par.

Of course, Dylan was affected in a manner similar to your humble blogger, as his Monday Finish feature was rendered moot by an actual Monday Finish.  But this is the prism that I found interesting:

2. “Spieth can’t play final rounds!”

There’s something intriguing about this one, since Spieth’s final rounds have been decidedly mixed this season. Entering the week, he ranked 38th in Round 1 Scoring Average, 44th in Round 2, fourth in Round 3 and yet just 112th in Round 4. He averaged 68.65 strokes on Saturdays and 70.65 on Sundays.

But those substandard rounds mostly came in one stretch earlier this season, when Spieth was in the lead or near it and shot some high-profile 75s. Another statistic tells another story: In Final Round Performance, which measures the percentage of time golfers improve their leaderboard standing in the last round of a tournament, Spieth is 13th on Tour at 76.5%. He’s actually steadier than it seems.

Interesting, because while Jordan has a reputation for his Cup play, there is this one anomaly captured in this 2018 header:

Jordan Spieth drubbed by Thorbjorn Olesen, now 0-6 in team singles matches

In the Ryder Cup, Spieth has lost to Henrik Stenson and Graeme McDowell, in addition to Thunder Bear.  In the Prez Cup he's lost singles matches to luminaries such as Jhonottan Vegas,  Marc Leishman and Graham DeLaet.

I can be a tad harsh, as you might have noticed, though I see a parallel with D=Sergio Garcia, who has made a Ryder Cup career of exceptional play in the team formats with disappointing Sundays (a gratuitous Anthony Kim reference could be made here).  I have always wondered whether that's a fatigue issue, either physical or mental, as both guys seem to have little left by Sunday.  I'd suggest that Stricker go easy with Jordan, especially since there's really no call to have him out there in foursomes.

One last bit with Ryder Cup implications.  I haven't a clue as to whether this guy has yet worn out his welcome, but Mr. Stricker has been gifted xcan euse to duck this issue:

Patrick Reed has been in a Houston hospital since Friday battling bilateral pneumonia, according to a report from Golf Channel.

Reed, who withdrew from the last two PGA Tour events, released a statement to the Golf

Channel’s Todd Lewis on his condition.

“I just want to update everyone…First and foremost-thank you all for your support,” Reed said in a statement. “The good news is, my ankle is okay. The bad news is I’ve been in the hospital with bilateral pneumonia. I’m on the road to recovery, once I’m cleared from the doctors-I look forward to returning. I wish you all the best and I can’t wait to get back out there! Thank you so much for your support, it means a lot to me. Also a special thank you to the doctors nurses and staff at the Methodist Hospital in the Texas Medical Center."

According to WebMD, bilateral interstitial pneumonia is a serious infection that can inflame and scar the lungs. A virus, bacteria or fungus causes the tiny sacs of the lungs, called alveoli, to become inflamed and fill with fluid or pus, causing a range of symptoms, including breathing difficulties.

Rory might be over the moon, not that he'd ever let us know it.

Judicial Non-Restraint -  I'm not a fan of what Jay Monahan did to Hank Haney over his silly, but true, comments, but I never expected Haney's lawsuit to have much affect.  But the story here is less the decision than an idiot judge trying to be clever:

"As the Court remarked at the outset of this matter, the allegations teed up in this case -- like a well-hit drive on the golf course -- [have] avoided pleading hazards . . . remained in bounds, and left Plaintiffs with an opportunity to take their next shot," U.S. District Court Judge Rodolfo Ruiz wrote in his ruling. "However, Plaintiffs' next shot has not fared as well as their opening drive. In an effort to reach the green and get this matter to trial, Plaintiffs' approach has found the water. And the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not provide for mulligans. ... Plaintiffs' round has come to an end."

Nothing speaks to an appropriate judicial temperament quite like going for cheap laughs by mangling golf terminology...

"Rule 9 of the USGA Rules of Golf states a key principle of the game: 'play the ball as it lies,'" Ruiz wrote in the ruling. "In other words, absent a few exceptions, players cannot improve their position by simply moving the golf ball. Here, under Rule 56, the Court must similarly take the evidence as it lies in the record. And that evidence makes clear that Plaintiffs are unable to establish the necessary elements of their claims."

Though I think Shack misses the delicious irony here, in that the defendant, for whom the judge is ruling, has shown more than a casual indifference to the concept of playing the ball as it lies in recent months.  

Alan, Asked - A perfect time for some low aerobic blogging via a Shipnuck mailbag:

Is there any chance the big boys will play to different fairways at the next U.S. Open at Oakmont? I’m pretty sure there will be no new trees, and with a packed house and grandstands it would be difficult. @ricmerc21

The ongoing debate about all the cross-country golf we saw during the U.S. Amateur has been fascinating. Some folks are saluting the players’ creativity while others are appalled, as if these guys were looting the Sistine Chapel. I fall somewhere in the middle. If the goal is to shoot the lowest score and/or win holes in match play, why not take advantage of better angles and render obsolete many hazards? These kids don’t care how Johnny Miller shot 63; they just want to make birdies any which way. But it did feel kind of wrong for such a proud course to be bastardized. Unless Oakmont suddenly grows a bunch of white stakes for internal out-of-bounds, which seems unlikely, I’m sure we’ll see some intrepid pros similarly finagling their way around the course at the ’25 Open. That raises many questions about player safety and pace of play, but, again, the pros just want to shoot a score and they don’t tend to get bogged down by such details.

I've been surprised by the relative lack of reaction to this, which I thought might serve as a wake-up call.  Not the first time I've been wrong or early on such a call...

Like everyone else, I think Adam Scott is a great dude, but how many hands would it require to count the number of Tour guys you’d trust less than him to bury one with it all on the line? #AskAlan @hailflutie

Remember when Greg Norman nearly cut off his hand with a chainsaw? Yeah, that’d about do it.

No one is quicker to the Shark attack than your humble blogger, but I still find that a strange answer from Alan...

Should some PGA Tour events have multi-hole aggregate playoffs like the majors? Or an extra playoff hole a la the tiny one that Tiger and Phil played in The Match? #AskAlan @martincbrennan

Sudden death is fun but kind of unsatisfying: A player can summon heroic golf for 72 holes, and then one bad bounce or mediocre swing at the wrong time torpedoes the whole thing. No doubt a three-hole playoff is the most equitable way to determine a champ, but it lacks the urgency of sudden death and is an inferior TV product. So I don’t see it happening at a run-of-the-mill Tour event.

Maybe Alan is distracted, but he seems to be fanning on a few today.  His answer about Tour events is perfect, it just leaves that 400 lb. elephant there in the corner, and by elephant I mean the Masters.  Of course, probably the ultimate the scenario would be to have a sudden death playoff at the Tour Championship whereby a  player prevails by virue of that staggered start.  Good times.

If someone in the top 125 can’t play in the first Fed Ex event, does the PGA bring in 126 and so on? @ReggieFrederick

Nope, those spots go unfilled. In fact, No. 8 Louis Oosthuizen won’t be teeing it up at Liberty National. I’ve clearly been spending too much time with Monday Q Info, but I do think the Tour should have some kind of play-in event. Imagine a Monday qualifier at the Northern Trust for that last spot. You could take all the guys who finished 126 to 200 and give them one final chance at salvation in a 75-for-1 18-hole shootout. That would be great fun and instantly mint the one player we would actually be invested in during the otherwise grim slog of the so-called playoffs.

 Yeah, and it can also leave us with a 29-player Tour Championship field.

If there was (impossibly) no stigma or shame in skipping the Ryder Cup, which Americans would choose to do so?@KennyDaGambler

Dustin for sure. He’d rather be boating. Probably Bryson; he’s a flag-waver but not exactly a guy built for team settings or partner play. I think Brooks (above) has inculcated the feelings Tiger had about the Ryder Cup during his heyday, which is to say, if you get too buddy-buddy with guys you’re trying to beat every other week between Cups, it diminishes your aura. Of course, Tiger’s brooding intensity was the real deal while for Koepka it’s mostly cosplay. But I think Brooksy would be happy to take a pass and not have to spend all that time getting touchy-feely with hard-core golf goobers. All the other Americans appear to be game, but, alas, the above players are 2-3-4 in the point standings, which doesn’t exactly bode well for a U.S. team that is already facing serious chemistry challenges.

No real argument with his answer, but from 1997-2018 the answer would have been Tiger, no?

These two logically go together:

Is Oakmont the best championship course in the USA? #AskAlan @pintosjavi

It has to be. It’s brawnier than Pebble Beach, more interesting than Winged Foot, asks better and more varied questions than Pinehurst, has far more frightening greens than Shinnecock Hills. I wouldn’t want to play Oakmont every day, but it’s one helluva test.

Do you agree with the general consensus that Johnny Miller’s 63 at Oakmont for the final round of the 1973 U.S. Open is the greatest round of golf ever played? @HofSpillane

As an exhibition of flawless golf, I think David Duval’s 59 to win the 1999 Bob Hope reigns supreme. But when you factor in the weight of history, the quality of the venue and the fact that one round crystalized an entire Hall of Fame career, you gotta give the edge to Miller.

Plus one other factor, that it hadn't been done before.... That it came at Oakmont made it all the more shocking.

We'll exit on this one"

Discuss Rory Sabbatini. The guy is 45, wins silver in the Olympics (playing for Slovakia), finished T10 at Wyndham yet nobody talks about him. Is he still not well-liked? @JStew68129215

It was Rorypalooza coming out of Tokyo, but I agree the goodwill was short-lived. Sabbatini reminds me of Vijay Singh: a very particular character who rubs a lot of people the wrong way, but the few folks he is close to are fiercely protective of him. Ages ago I spent the better part of a day with Sabbatini at the Oven, Nike’s club-fitting factory in Fort Worth, Texas, and I thought he was hilarious, but definitely blunt and politically incorrect. The guy has been through some stuff and become guarded with the press and standoffish with his peers. I hope the silver medal gets him to loosen up. He is one of the few players on Tour who inspires emotion in the fans—it would be fun to see him be himself a bit more.

I'm completely open to the concept that Sabbatini isn't quite the complete jerk he's reputed to be, and the Vijay comparison is a good one.  I'd also allow for the possibility that he's mellowed with age and a happy home life (though that home life is not in Slovakia). 

My issue is less with him than with Olympic golf, because the simple fact is that his inclusion in the field makes a mockery of the entire undertaking.  You're not supposed to be able to sleep your way onto an Olympic team, which is precisely how he got there.

Not sure of the schedule going forward, so bear with me.