Weekend Wrap

In which your humble blogger will blog an event he saw none of...  Of course this is hardly the first for that, although in other cases it was typically because I was watching other golf events.

The Golden Child - Sean Zak ledes his on-site account with the story of Stafan Schauffele, which seems fair:

It’s impossible to tell the Xander Schauffele story without mentioning his father, even if the latter would prefer this story to be all about the progress of the former. Stefan was an Olympian hopeful from Germany, in the decathlon. During his training for the 1988 Olympics, a drunk driver crashed into Stefan’s vehicle, leaving him badly injured and blind in his left eye. When he watches Xander play from afar, it’s always through a monocular.

 That story I assume you've heard, but the family's connections to Japan you might have missed:

The hidden asset was that they were going to Japan, and Stefan knows Japan well. He once owned a business here and made biannual trips. He even lived in Tokyo full-time for two years.

He knows Japanese citizens follow the rules, but on occasion you can push those rules. That’s exactly what he did. He leaned on his old connections to find a more suitable hotel for Xander’s crew, with all kinds of space. Hotels in downtown Tokyo have room for just a single full-size bed, but Team Schauffele’s four rooms out nearer the golf course had two queen beds apiece.

While players in the field were only allowed to bring one caddie and one personal coach, one of Stefan’s old business partners has been staying with Team Schauffele at the hotel all week. “He’s taking care of everything,” Stefan said. “Without him, we’d be screwed.” Whereas part of the field has been making that commute back to the Olympic Village each night, Stefan makes one call when they’re thinking of leaving the golf course. When they arrived back home, a full spread of Japanese food awaited them. Something different every night. From restaurants owned by old friends, and friends of friends.

The gaming of the system will be a recurring theme today, a recurring theme for the Olympics writ large.  I'm not saying there's anything improper in it, but at these bizarre Olympics the advantage is quite apparent. 

If that photo above reminds you of Woods pere and fil, that doesn't seem the only apt comparison to Earl:

“That gave [Xander] an enormous comfort level,” Stefan said. A “leg up,” even, on the competitors who followed all the guidelines. With Tokyo under a state of emergency during the Games, alcohol is only being sold before 8 p.m. local time. There’s none on offer in Kasumigaseki’s clubhouse. But Stefan had been sneaking beers in to KCC all week, burying them in the head of the golf travel bag as they went through security. On Sunday, finally, he was caught in the act, and even fessed up to how much he’s gotten away with. He had to move forward without the suds in tow.

I'm shocked to hear that Olympic golf survives without swing juice...

As this Golf Digest account fills in, there was that Freddy-Couples-ball-stays-on-the-bank-when-it-shouldn't moment:

His cushion was down to one as Schauffele stepped to the last par 5 at Kasumigaseki Country

Club, the reachable 14th. He fanned his first drive into a forest well right of the fairway. Provisional time. As one does, he over-compensated and badly hooked his re-load. Every golfer’s been there. Your first drive might be lost, and the provisional wasn’t much better. Just like that, a round-busting big number has entered the picture.

Schauffele owes a great deal to whoever found his original ball, for he wouldn’t have the gold medal around his neck if not for that person. With the ball located, Schauffele was able to take an unplayable lie, punch back into play, punch out again into the fairway, then get up-and-down for the best bogey of his life. Still, his lead had fully evaporated, and a swaggering Matsuyama was a single shot behind.

And that testy finish:

Ultimately, Matsuyama’s chances faded by way of body blows: a three-putt bogey at 15, missing a good birdie look at 16 and missing another at the drivable par-4 17th. After watching Matusyama’s birdie effort miss left on 17, Schauffele poured his right in the center to reclaim his lead for good over Sabbatini.

Schauffele wasn’t out of the woods yet, though, for his very next shot quite literally found the woods. Schauffele missed well right again on the par-4 18 and then inquired about a drop—he wanted line-of-sight relief from a scoreboard, but the scoreboard was directly behind a whole bunch of trees, so his inquiry was met with an “absolutely not.” (You can’t fault the man for thinking creatively.) Next came a punch out to the fairway, which meant he had to get up-and-down to avoid a playoff with Sabbatini. His third landed well past the pin but spun niftily back to three feet.

“I was trying so hard to just stay calm,” Schauffele said. “Hit a terrible drive on 18, had to make a sort of sloppy par and fortunately hit it close enough to sort of have a high percentage putt at roughly four, five feet. But, man, it was stressful. And I made that putt, and it was just a huge weight lifted off my shoulders and just very relieved and happy, of course.”

So, what's it all about, Alfie?  The Tour Confidential panel takes its shots, beginning with the winner:

1. Xander Schauffele won gold in the Tokyo Olympics men’s golf event on Sunday, shooting a final-round 67 to edge a hard-charging Rory Sabbatini by a stroke. Schauffele, who has been competitive in many majors (nine top 10s) but struggled to close them out, called the title the biggest of his life. How does a gold medal change the narrative around Schaufelle’s young career?

Josh Sens: It definitely helps quiet some of the questions about his ability to close, which were starting to get louder with each close call, no matter how well Schauffele handled them. To many

observers, though, nabbing an Olympic gold is nowhere near on par with winning a major, and we’ll no doubt hear from those voices until Schauffele gets his first. One very good thing about the ‘narrative’ about Schauffele is that Schauffele seems not to obsess about it. Smart young man, steering clear of social media.

James Colgan: Sure, it changes the narrative around Schauffele being able to win “a big tournament.” Does it change the narrative about his struggles in winning one of the four big tournaments? No, not quite.

Dylan Dethier: It’s massive. We can be honest that the Olympics’ strength of field was lacking in depth while also appreciating that to Schauffele, this meant a ton. He put the pedal to the medal out of the gates on Sunday, lost his mojo for a bit on the back nine and then made impressive up-and-downs on 17 and 18 to bring home the gold. I shudder to think the takes that would inevitably be flying around this question had he missed that final four-footer, but the point is that he didn’t. He hit it dead-center. And four years from now, people will hardly remember that this Olympic field was missing some marquee names — but they’ll remember that Schauffele owns the gold.

Michael Bamberger: The harsh view is that he beat 59 guys, some of whom could seldom beat him, on a soft course. A far better way to view it is he did what he needed to do to win an OLYMPIC GOLD MEDAL. Which, no matter how you parse it, is kind of a big deal.

Isn't the more pressing question why they feel compelled to bite the golf medal?  I mean, they have no idea where that medal has been... 

This is now our second iteration of Olympic Golf, and we've seen two gold medal winners to whom it seems important, so we can graciously allow them to revel in their wins.  But what seems harsh to Mike Bamberger strikes the rest of us as just the lay of the land, which we ignore at our own peril.  But even ross the finish line, Xander admitted to substantial relief at getting this across the finish line, so in that sense this could help him in the future.

Silver Linings - If Mike Bamberger finds the accounts of Xander's finish unduly harsh, he might want to skip this portion of today's post.  Back in the day we used to make up entries into the category of World's Shortest Books, such as World's Greatest Jewish Athletes (hey, we've got Hank Greenburg and Sandy Koufax) or Great Black Yachtsmen, yanno, things that would today get your Twitter account shut down.  Today it's all hail Rory Sabbatini, the World's Greatest Slovakian Golfer.

Earlier in the week we had this dubious article:

Why Rory Sabbatini’s unusual road to the Olympics could make him a national hero

So, ever instinct in me wants to hate this story, only partially as a result of the individual involved.  But as one dives in, the realization dawns that it's not all bad:

Here’s the rest of the story: Stofanikova’s cousin, Rastislav Antal, was then vice-president of the

Funny, he doesn't look Slovakian.

Slovak Golf Association (earlier this year, he was elected president). In Sabbatini, Antal saw great value. If Sabbatini were to play under the Slovak flag, his golf celebrity would go a long way toward promoting the game in Slovakia, a nation with only 9,000 registered golfers and 26 courses.

Antal took his vision to Sabbatini, who responded positively. In particular, Sabbatini said he liked the idea of supporting junior golf initiatives in his wife and stepson’s homeland.

With Balga guiding him along, Sabbatini began the naturalization process.

Is growing golf in Slovakia a good thing?  I have to think that, as with Brazil in 2016, there are way more important things for the Slovaks, but who am I to say?  But here's where the issues start to bite:

The plan also came with one other significant benefit to both Slovak golf and Sabbatini himself: becoming a Slovakia citizen would more than likely allow Sabbatini to compete in the 2020 Summer Olympics, an opportunity he would not have had if had tried to qualify as a South African, because of much stiffer competition.

Some wondered whether an Olympic bid was the real motivation for Sabbatini’s newfound loyalty to Slovakia. Sabbatini was quick to rebuff the notion, saying in early 2019 that “this decision was made to support my wife and stepson and to open the door for golf development in Slovakia. I didn’t even know I would be eligible.”

Exit question: Is he now Ryder Cup elegible?

But get this rather nuanced rationalization:

As for how much national pride the Slovakian golf community has in Sabbatini, Balga said that depends on whom you ask.

“Some of the golfers are proud of having him on our national team, but, yeah, there are still some people who say, ‘He’s not Slovak.’”

In fairness to Sabbatini, he’s not stealing an Olympic bid from any of his fellow countrymen. Far from it. The next highest ranked Slovak golfer is Petr Valasek, who is 848th in the world (and that’s after winning a European mini-tour event in Poland a couple of weeks ago). Valasek was nowhere near sniffing a place in the field in Tokyo. For Slovak golf, it was Sabbatini or bust.

OK, then it's all well and good... Obviously he did take the slot from another, higher-ranked golfer, just not a Slovak.  All of this was deep background and utterly irrelevant to the proceedings, until lightning struck:

Still, the move was widely seen as a strategic one—Sabbatini, a six-time PGA Tour winner and the oldest player in the Olympic field at 45, would have a much tougher time qualifying for the

South African Olympic team. But Slovakia? The nation has just 9,000 golfers and 26 courses. After Sabbatini, who is ranked No. 204, the highest ranked Slovakian is Petr Vasalek at No. 848. He’d waltz onto the team, which is exactly what happened. It quickly became an easy punchline on Golf Twitter; Brendan Porath, a Golf Digest editor and host of the Shotgun Start podcast, gave him the nickname “the Boy from Bratislava.”

The nickname stuck, but the Slovakia storyline didn’t get much play through the first three rounds in Tokyo. Sabbatini simply wasn’t a factor. He began Sunday seven shots behind the lead and five shots out of the medal contention. He then produced the best round in the (rather short) history of Olympic golf, a 61 with an eagle and 10 birdies—including on the final two holes—to post 17-under 267 and take the clubhouse lead hours before the leaders would finish.

Imagine if Xander had made bogey on No. 18 and lost to the Boy From Bratislava in a playoff... 

A couple of obvious points need to be made, methinks.  First, I've tried to present the above without editorial comment as to the individual involved.  But I flipped to Golf Channel last night during a commercial break on NBC, and Employee No. 2 saw a glimpse of Sabbatine, and turns to me with the following question, "Isn't he the biggest a*****le in golf?"  To which the answer is probably, though it's a very competitive category....  It's great if he's found happiness in Slovakia and the pictures of his wife on the bag are cute, but you want me to make allowances for Rory Sabbatini?  That's a big ask....

But the second point is the more important one, because people will say, "He shot 61 and won silver, so obviously he belonged there."  No, a thousand times no, he's the 204th ranked player in the world and it's a 60[player field.... In what universe does he belong?  But the important point is to understand the nature of our game, that the 204th ranked player can do that is the necessary argument for a larger field.

Last week we had an article featuring Peter Dawson in which he explained that the IOC wanted the 72 hole stroke play format, because that's the format used for serious golf competitions.  Except it isn't, because those events don't have a thirty player field (I use thirty because only about half the field are world-class players), which Peter Dawson might have seen fit to explain to the IOC.

The Bronze Age - This I liked very much, not that I saw any of it:

As it turns out, once people stop handing out something insignificant like “a million dollars” for third place (the prize for second runner-up at this year’s Players Championship) and instead play for a small copper circle (yeah, they make the bronze medals from mostly copper), things get awfully interesting. At least, interesting for those still awake to watch. The Olympics was marketed as a chance to “grow the game,” but the late hour likely thinned the herd of viewers to golf sickos and insomniacs.

In wonderfully Olympic fashion, the seven pros in the bronze-medal bonanza represented seven different nationalities. One guy (Collin Morikawa) had just won his second major championship in less than a year. Another guy (Rory McIlroy) was the proud owner of twice that many. A third (Mito Pereira) was playing on the Korn Ferry Tour a few weeks ago. And that was less than half the playoff’s competitors.

The Olympic playoff rules dictate that as long as no more than six players are in a playoff, they can all go off in the same group. Well, bad news for the Olympic playoff rules. Seven golfers — in just a 60-player field! — meant a foursome and a threesome navigating an awkward two-step down the challenging 18th.

I love the awkwardness of it all, but as I flipped to Golf Channel last night we caught the replay of the finish, and I was charmed by the celebration of C.T. Pan's "win", specifically the dousing of him by supporters.  The math of golf is unrelentingly brutal, typically 155 losers each week to the one winners, and this seems to me something we can build on with Olympic golf.

So, let's circle back to the TC panel and see what they thought of it all:

2. Sabbatini posted a Sunday 61 to bring home silver for Slovakia. Rory McIlroy had a shot at bronze but came up short in a seven-player playoff won by C.T. Pan. Justin Thomas and late addition Patrick Reed failed to crack the top 20. Whose play in Tokyo most surprised — or inspired — you?

Sens: Sabbatini. He’s always been streaky, but to put up a performance like that in an event that clearly meant a ton to him, playing under an adoptive flag — that was cool. Having his wife on the bag, shouting in celebration when his birdies dropped, added a sweet dimension to it all — not exactly standard caddie comportment but welcome anyway.

Colgan: Neither Sungjae Im nor Si Woo Kim managing a top-20 finish after taking off the Open Championship to prepare was surprising to me. Particularly considering the enormous significance the event held to both of their careers.

Dethier: Pan’s charge to the bronze was incredible. After an opening 74, he was the best golfer in the field over the last 54 holes, shooting 66-66-63 and fending off a bunch of blue-chippers in that seven-golfer playoff.

Bamberger: Sabo, wearing the colors of Slovakia. Which are red, blue and white. As he would surely know.

Well, those red, white and blue colors will fit in at his South Florida home as well:

 

3. More than a few observers have looked at Olympic golf with a skeptical eye, in part because some of the game’s biggest stars have been reluctant to participate. With two editions of an Olympic golf event behind us (in the modern era), what’s your assessment of golf as an Olympic sport?

Sens: It belongs but the format could use some tweaking. Our own Dylan Dethier had some of the sharper suggestions I’ve seen so far in his column earlier this week. Stroke-play is key to identifying the best player. But Olympic golf is begging for a team component.

Colgan: Throwing out the testing, restrictions, and general Covid weirdness of this year’s event (all of which were legitimate gripes), the Olympic tournament has more than proved its worth as one of the 10 biggest events in the men’s game. It might even be in the top 5. Now give us the damn team component so we can REALLY celebrate.

Dethier: I laid out the simplest possible solution I could think of: Have the men and women compete on the same days, team up for four-golfer teams (two men, two women) and take the three best scores out of four each day to make a team score and corresponding team medals. The individual competition would be unchanged. (In a perfect world, the top four teams would then play match play to determine medal order, but I’m not a greedy man and I’ll take any version of team format.

Bamberger: I don’t think you need an individual title at all. Just play two-person better-ball teams.

I don't see the logic in not having an individual competition, golf being the ultimate individual sportand you'd likely need that to qualify teams for the match-play event under any circumstances.  But give us a reason to watch...

4. The Olympics has a deeply personal vibe: it can mean a lot to a golfer, not much or somewhere in between. When you consider the weight of what’s at stake paired with what is a relatively weak field compared to golf’s other big events, how do you rate the significance of a gold medal? Can/should it be mentioned in the same breath as a major title?

No.  Next question.

Sens: It can be mentioned in the same breath, but only if you acknowledge how different they are. Which is not a bad thing.

Colgan: It’s not quite a major, but it’s worth a little bit more than everything on the PGA Tour calendar. There’s a real, tangible significance to winning an Olympic medal in the greater sports consciousness that can’t be said for non-majors. Simple as that.

Dethier: I have a feeling Schauffele’s win will only grow in significance with time. There’s only one of these every four years, after all, and I have a feeling the fields will keep getting stronger. We don’t talk much about the strength of field for major championships in the 1980s; we count ‘em just the same as today’s. Also, it’s a hell of a cocktail party intro. Schauffele might not wow random sports fans with a PGA Championship title, but Olympic gold?That translates pretty well.

Bamberger: Let’s play rank-’em: British, U.S., Masters, Olympic gold, PGA.

Admit it, Mike made you laugh....  

5. The format of Olympic golf is one of its most debated elements, with some arguing that 72 holes of stroke play is the best way to identify champion and others suggesting that a team or even a mixed-gender format would be more compelling. What say you? Keep the format for Paris 2024, or alter it?

Sens: Change it. Stitch a team competition in with the individual, as is done already in a number of other Olympic sports. Mixed gender? Sure. Why not. Anything to help Olympic golf stand out from other tournaments, without making it gimmicky. A non-golf fan friend called me this morning to say he’d watched the event and wondered why they didn’t make it a skills challenge, with closest to the pin and long-drive competitions and such. I wouldn’t want to go there, but four rounds of stroke play is ripe for improvement.

Colgan: I would suggest the Olympic committee read Dylan’s brilliantly outlined solution to incorporating both stroke and team play. Then I would suggest they enact it as the new law of the land. The End.

Dethier: I’d have to agree with James, because he’s agreeing with me. Also, there are 37 swimming events; shouldn’t golf get more than two?

Bamberger: I’d ditch anything in golf related to individual play.

There's two separate answers.  The first involves some sort of team competition, which is really more of an add than a change.  This is such a no-brainer that it frustrates that we still have to discuss it.

But the point that seems totally overlooked is the need to strengthen the field dramatically.  The number of world-class players needs to be tripled to have this event taken seriously, and no one seems prepared to fight that battle.  

One last throwaway bit:

6. Many of today’s top players fancy themselves as proper athletes. If you had to send one golfer to an Olympic trial in another sport (with hopes of them earning a spot on Team USA), who are you assigning to which sport, and why?

Sens: Alex Noren in table tennis? Adam Scott in surfing? Shane Lowry in the high jump? Some would do better than others, but all would reinforce what we see when athletes from other sports try to compete with the best in golf. They can’t.

Colgan: I could see Tony Finau being pretty solid in 3×3 basketball. Maybe Bryson in the hammer throw. Definitely not Justin Thomas in weightlifting.

Dethier: Collin Morikawa seems like he’d be a hell of an archer. And a visored, mulleted Cameron Smith has the ideal assistant coach vibe for just about any team in any sport.

Bamberger: I don’t know but I once asked Earl Woods what Tiger would have pursued had he not been a golfer and he said he would have been a 400-meter high-hurdler.

I can't come up with anything funnier than the concept of Shane Lowery high jumping....

I'll need to wrap this here and get on with my day.  I have an interesting Eamon Lynch piece on Olympic Golf that I'm holding over for tomorrow, when I'll have time to do a deeper dive.  And we can preview the ladies as well.