Nine players — nine! — had at least a share of the final-round lead on Sunday at the Wyndham Championship. Six of them — six! — advanced to a playoff, tying the mark for most players tomove on to extra holes. One of the players who did not, Russell Henley, had led at Sedgefield Country Club after each of the first three rounds, only to three-putt the final hole from just off the green and miss the playoff by a stroke. At the end of the regular season of the PGA Tour’s first-ever “super season,” the super-sized finale was perhaps fitting.
In the end, it was Kevin Kisner who survived for his fourth PGA Tour victory, which also snapped his personal 0 for 5 record in playoffs. In Sunday’s extra holes, after all six players incredibly parred the 18th, the first hole of the playoff, all six returned to the 18th tee for the second extra hole, where Kisner then hit his approach to 4 feet and dropped the birdie putt for the victory.
Afterward, in a bizarre scene that one CBS commentator noted looked like a wedding receiving line, Kisner was congratulated by the other five members of the playoff: Si Woo Kim, Kevin Na, Branden Grace, Adam Scott and Roger Sloan. Each player had finished at 15-under, one shot ahead of Henley, Webb Simpson and Kevin Streelman.
I'm almost tempted to review my DVR tape to find the identity of that anonymous CBS analyst, who apparently soared dangerously close to the sun. I mean, this is the PGA Tour, we can't allow any humor here... The name Roger Sloan is completely new to me, though he turns out to be a 34-year old Canuck who one once on the Canadian Tour in 2011.
But if the the week is to be be remembered, it'll be for the carnage among those who needed a status upgrade to play next week or next year. For instance, this former A-lister seemed to have everything under control.... until, yanno, he didn't:
Justin Rose needed to make a putt of 5 feet, 4 inches to earn a trip to New Jersey and the first round of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. He missed, and he punched a ticket for Chesson Hadley instead.
Rose is now out of the Playoffs, but he didn’t lose his card. He’s among several players who didn’t make the top 125 but still has a card for next season (or beyond) based off previous wins. But Hadley didn’t have the security.
“That’s kind of what the Playoffs is all about, right?” Rose said. “It’s a knife-edged moment. I’ve been on the winning side at East Lake where a bogey was costly and a birdie got me back into the projected No. 1 spot, so I’ve been on the right side of it and maybe on the wrong side today. Yeah, it’s not nice when it’s not in your hands, but obviously it was in my hands up 18. I didn’t do a very good job of that.”
Hadley did have quite the day, including a first:
Hadley, age 34, was one of the pros battling to get to 125th or better in the FedEx Cup standings— or be sent to more qualifying events, where the competition continues (and intensifies) to earn a card. He started the day 132nd in the FedEx Cup but got hot early and shot an eight-under 62, which included a hole in one. Hadley, who started on the back nine, birdied three of his first four and made a hole-in-one — the first of his life — on 16.
He said he didn’t have number in mind to start the day. He just knew he had to go low.
“After I made that [ace] and got to five under on the day, I was like, I can do this. I made a nice birdie on the next hole and made a nice par save on 18 and I started to tighten up a little bit,” Hadley said. “I hit some good shots early on on the front nine, my back side, but didn’t get anything out of it. Nice par save on 4. You know, I finished strong with a couple birdies. You just, I don’t know, it will be close. I mean, it will be really, really close.”
No word on whether that turn of events came with Hadley's signature finger-snap....
We do occasionally look for headers that didn't age well, including this obvious example from Saturday:
Justin Rose has five simple words of advice for playing under pressure
Not that there's anything wrong with the advice, it's just a stupidly hard game we play:
How’d he do it? A reporter even more bluntly asked: “As somebody who, like, chokes when he’s playing corn hole, how do you do that as a professional athlete?” In a thoughtful answer after his round, complete with a later reference to tennis, it all really boils down to just five words:
You need to be free.
“You just need to have a little bit of a bigger picture and a bit of perspective going on,” Rose said. “So for me, for example, if I want to get back to playing some of the best golf that I’ve played and to compete with the best players in the world again and sort of compete in major championships, you need to be free.
I certainly understand it at the conceptual level....
I'm not even sure that Rose's was the worst meltdown of the day. This guy needed to win this week to move on:
Then on the first hole of the playoff, Scott, the most accomplished player among the sixsome, missed a 4-footer for birdie that would have won him his 15th Tour victory.
Oy vey! This was all about making the FedEx Cup playoffs (Ed: I think you spelled Moneygrab incorrectly), as most of the big names are set for the next year:
Rose (126th) is among the big names who didn’t qualify for the Playoffs, but he didn’t have to worry about keeping a card. He’s good through 2023-24 due to a WGC win. Rickie Fowler (134th) is safe through 2022-23 via his Players win, Francesco Molinari (142nd) is still good through 2024-25 due to his Open Championship victory, and Jimmy Walker (166th) is good for next season with his PGA victory at Baltusrol.
The last time I saw Jimmy Walker was on a milk carton....
Josh Berhow shares this about those losing their cards, though in four out of five the S-word seems inappropriate:
5 surprising players who lost their PGA Tour cards on Sunday
This is the one that might surprise:
Tommy Fleetwood (137th) — Europe’s Ryder Cup star missed only four of 18 cuts on the PGA Tour this season, but he had just four top 25s. He still has yet to win on the PGA Tour in 88 starts.
What's really shocking is that neither of the Moliwood pair figure to be at Whistling Straights....
Before we leave the Wyndham, the Tour Confidential panel had this one bit that's of interest:
3. The Wyndham Championship came down to a record-tying six-man playoff, where Kevin Kisner won with a birdie on the second extra hole. Kisner has famously played well at the WGC Match Play and in his one Presidents Cup appearance, but still hasn’t played on a Ryder Cup team. The first six spots will lock two weeks from now after the BMW Championship, with six captain’s picks coming after the Tour Championship. Was this win what Kisner needed to finally solidify his spot on the team as a captain’s pick, if needed?
Zak: Nope! My answer to everyone who is surprised at Kisner’s Ryder Cup snubs is … play better! The guy is plenty good, and clearly a bit of a match-play dog, but his recent results don’t all imply great form. A win this week was wonderful, but it wouldn’t have happened without Adam Scott missing a 4-footer. He played well in Detroit and Hartford, but that didn’t translate to major championship courses this year. A missed cut at the Masters and the PGA before a T55 and a 73rd-place finish at the summer majors. So no, Kisner is good, but not great. And thus is not a lock. But he won this week and I’m sure that makes him a bit more confident for the playoff run.
Dethier: Correct. If you think Kisner should be on this team it’s because you think he’d be a good fit as a personality and as a player, not because he’s “deserving” through his stroke-play tournament schedule. I think he’d be a solid addition to the team but I don’t think he’s worked his way on. But he still has a brief audition left that he could nail.
Sens: If I were in Stricker’s shoes, I’d scrap the standings and the stat book and just go with my gut in this case. The gut says Kisner would be a Corey Pavin-like killer in the Ryder Cup, so I’d put him on the team. Poor choice? Maybe. But does it really matter? It’s just an exhibition, right? [Ducks.]
Berhow: I think he has a better shot now than some of you folks do. Let’s remember, there are six captain’s picks this year, not two like usual, and that leaves a lot more room for creativity. Right now he’s in the same tier, points-wise, as guys like Berger, Cantlay, Finau and Webb. I’m not taking all of those guys over Kisner, whose personality and match-play prowess would be a big asset to the squad.
I find that Sean Zak response a bit puzzling.... That "Play Better" is a reflexive answer (not that it isn't appropriate at times), but the gist of the argument is about the criteria for Captain's picks. Sean seems to be arguing that we should take the top twelve on the points list, whereas Josh Sens amusingly suggests just the opposite.
I actually argued for Kisner over Finau back in 2018, mostly because of the flat stick. Of course, Finau was one of the few guys on our side that actually played well, so my reputation as the '62 Mets of golf predictions remains intact. Of course, it's profoundly silly to talk about Kiz or any player in isolation, because it ultimately comes down to Kiz vs. another guy, which discussion will be joined in a couple of weeks.
The Kids Are All Right - I was able to take in some of the U.S. Amateur from Oakmont, though none of the final 36-hole match:
James Piot was facing the biggest deficit of the match, by any player, with just nine holes remaining in the 121st U.S. Amateur. And then he flipped the script.
Piot won four straight holes to retake the lead and never lost it, beating Austin Greaser 2 and 1 in the U.S. Amateur final on Sunday at Oakmont Country Club in Pennsylvania. With the win, Piot now has invites to next year’s Masters, U.S. Open and Open Championship.
Piot, a Michigan State senior, and Greaser, a North Carolina junior, saw little movement to start their 36-hole final on Sunday. Piot went 2 up on the 11th hole, but that didn’t last when he lost the 12th with a bogey. They traded 1-up leads until Greaser went 2 up on the 22nd hole and then made it 3 up with his par on the 27th. With nine to play, Piot was 3 down.
But he won the next four holes with two birdies and two pars, using a mix of superb play while also capitalizing on his opponent’s mistakes to go 1 up with five remaining. He won the 33rd hole with a par to go 2 up and then held off Greaser and closed it out on the 35th.
An unlikely winner for sure:
In all likelihood you’d probably never heard of Piot before catching a glimpse of him this week at the 121st edition of the USGA’s oldest championship. The 22-year-old fifth-year senior at Michigan State was ranked No. 86 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, good but not elite. He wasn’t a member of the U.S. Walker Cup team last May at Seminole Golf Club. He qualified for the U.S. Am last year at Bandon Dunes, even earned the No. 2 seed, but didn’t get past the second round of match play.
This is the nature of match play, as favorites fell early and hard. But speaking of the nature of our game, we touched on this topic last week:
2. Speaking of Oakmont, James Piot beat Austin Greaser to win the U.S. Amateur there on Sunday, but one of the bigger storylines from the week, as reported by both Golf Channel and Golf Digest, centered around players taking advantage of the absence of trees at the iconic course and driving into adjacent fairways in order to set up better angles into greens. A few courses, most notably TPC Sawgrass during this year’s Players Championship, eliminated this practice by creating internal out of bounds. Two questions: Should players be allowed to play courses in ways not originally intended? And should courses be allowed to set up new boundaries, like TPC Sawgrass did?
Zak: My answer to the latter should take care of the former. Courses should be allowed to create new boundaries to protect a designer’s intentions. We don’t need precedent for it. Put your player’s cap on. Make the rule right now.
Dethier: Players certainly shouldn’t be chided for finding more efficient ways to play existing golf holes. We’re smarter than ever about understanding where strokes and advantages are gained, which means great golfers can ditch old “conventional wisdom” that might tell them to lay back with an iron off the tee when the alternative is hitting driver to a large landing area on another hole. I think internal O.B. should only be used as a last resort, when other players’ safety is put at risk.
Sens: Go for it if you really think it’s necessary. But don’t kid yourself. Today’s elite golfers are already playing courses in ways that designers never intended. Adding internal O.B. doesn’t stop that. In an ironic twist, it further alters the course from what the architect originally intended.
Berhow: Players, at least the smart ones, will find ways to shoot the lowest score possible, and I have no problem with that. But irked courses should have the ability to bite back, whether we like it or not.
I find it odd to discuss this issue without raising the subject of rangefinders. Are they able to do this without the DMD?
This bit about chiding players is a red herring, as of course they'll grab any advantage available, but what does this tell us about that state of our game? Are they able to do this because of the distance they're carrying the ball? At the very least, it puts a new spin on tree removal programs.
Golf In The Kingdom - Of Fife, that is.... Quite the week for a young lady considering the R-word:
For more than a decade, it was never enough to say that Ryann O’Toole had never won on the LPGA Tour. Not quite. Surprisingly for someone who has played in a Solheim Cup, amassedmore than $2 million in prize money and recorded 11 top-10s over the course of her 11-year pro career, the 34-year-old American had never managed even a runner-up finish in an LPGA event.
And she still hasn’t. Finished second that is. But that first-place thing? Gone. In what was her 228th LPGA start, O’Toole’s 72-hole aggregate of 17-under 271 was three shots better than anyone else and saw her claim the Trust Golf Women's Scottish Open title over the spectacular Dumbarnie Links on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth. It was a victory worth $225,000.
All of which was achieved with some aplomb, under more than a little pressure from a distinguished chasing pack and with a new caddie, Michael Curry, on the bag. No matter.
O’Toole’s closing 64 was bogey-free and comfortably good enough to see off a notable list of challengers. Lydia Ko—whose closing 63 equaled the course record set by Ally Ewing almost 90 minutes earlier—and the prodigious talent owned by 18-year-old Thai Atthaya Thitikul were joint runners-up. Former World No. 1 Ariya Jutanugarn was fourth on 13 under, and former European Solheim Cupper Charley Hull was another shot back. No one else was within six shots of an understandably emotional champion.
I did enjoy this bit that closes out the game story:
One last thing. Watched by a journalist, O’Toole played a few holes alongside compatriot Christina Kim and Australian Su Oh on the eve of the championship. On their final hole, the 157-yard par-3 eighth, Kim and Oh punched beautifully struck shots through the stiff breeze onto the green. In comparison, O’Toole’s two efforts were high, weak and ultimately short of the putting surface.
“She’ll miss the cut hitting shots like that,” thought the lone spectator, who fancies himself a bit of a links connoisseur.
Five days later, Kim finished T-56, Oh pulled up in a tie for 34th place and O’Toole was a champion.
Memo to self: Never jump to golfing conclusions.
A links connoisseur, eh? Dear Reader, does that remind you of anyone?
I did watch a bit of the early rounds, and especially enjoyed Friday, when the wind was howling and the ski caps were ubiquitous. This bit about keeping the ball down in the wind does get a little overplayed. It's a real thing, though the lesson we all learned from Tom Watson is that the more important thing is to hit the ball on the screws, thereby minimizing spin.
As for Dumbarnie, it is a new, high-end daily-fee links located just down the road from where Employee No. 2 and I (and Jewelle, for those that were reading along back in 2019) stayed in St. Monans. It'll compete with Kingsbarns for that tourist dollar, but could they have opened at a worse time?
Got time for some udder stuff? First, the TC panel had this on last week's USGA announcement:
1. Back in September, the USGA announced that Pinehurst No. 2 will host a U.S. Open every five to seven years, part of an agreement that also will see the governing body move some of its operations to North Carolina. At the time, an official said the USGA would be “working on some other agreements with other host clubs for longer term deals as well to round out the plan for where we go.” Now we know the second anchor club — Oakmont, which will host men’s Opens in 2025, 2034, 2042 and 2049 (and the women in 2028 and 2038). Merion also got Open nods for 2030 and 2050. Do you like the move, and what other course, or courses, should the USGA anoint as an anchor venue next?Sean Zak: Love the move. People were quick to make jokes about the USGA naming hosts nearly three decades from now, but I get the sense that was just part of this process. The USGA made this announcement in tandem with local politicians, just like it did with Pinehurst last year. They’re getting buy-in from major golf locales that want to be known as the American golf locales. You won’t find anyone upset with Oakmont hosting a bunch of majors. As for the next anchor, Pebble is the obvious choice.Dylan Dethier: Pebble makes lots of sense and will (and should!) stay in the regular rotation. But I don’t want to see only anchor sites — I understand the benefits of having some stability at those courses but part of the beauty of the U.S. Open is also in its ability to show us golf from different perspectives across the country, so I hope that continues, too.Josh Sens: Agreed. On that note, I’d like to see one of Dylan’s favorites (Chambers Bay) get another crack at it.
Josh Berhow: Pebble seems like the obvious next choice, if more anchor sites are coming, and perhaps Shinnecock Hills or Winged Foot after that, but I agree with the group. I think you want a few anchor courses to have a sense or normalcy you can always go back home to, but you need to keep options open for other developments and some first-time fliers, like what we saw recently with Chambers Bay and Erin Hills.
To me the surprise is how many of their traditional Open sites have been abandoned and mostly taken over by the PGA of America, including Southern Hills, Oakland Hills, Oak Hill, Olympic and even Bethpage Black, although that is of more recent vintage.
The actual bigger story might be the USGA's locking down these storied venues for their second tier events, the Women and Senior Opens and the two flagship amateur events. It's not like we didn't know that they'd come back to Oakmont, though I'm still a bit surprised about the long-term commitment to Merion, where they didn't visit from 1981 until 2013.
The bigger issue is the one Dylan Dethier highlights, do we want and expect them to mix in some new venues, especially given the reaction to the last two of those cited by Josh Berhow. This comes at an interesting time, because the next two Opens are not at anchor sites. Next year they return to The Country Club, a place of obvious historic importance in our game, but one they've eschewed since the days of Curtis Strange. In 2023 they go to a "New venue", the North course at L.A. Country Club, though unlike Chambers and Erin, this is an old-timey historic venue that's been lovingly restored to George Thomas' original vision. Perhaps we should revisit this discussion after we see how those two events come off?
Personnel Is Policy - That's an old political truism, but there's been a shake-up at the USGA that's of modest interest. First, Mike Whan has added a trusted former colleague to that governing body:
JON PODANY NAMED USGA CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER
Seasoned executive brings extensive experience in business development, television and brand management, as well as a proven track record of success with USGA CEO Mike Whan
LIBERTY CORNER, N.J. (August 12, 2021) – The USGA announced today that Jon Podany will join the Association as its new Chief Commercial Officer, starting September 1.
Podany brings to the USGA an extensive background in sports spanning marquee companies such as the PGA Tour, LPGA, Arnold Palmer Enterprises and Procter & Gamble. Podany’s roles as CEO, Chief Commercial Officer and Chief Marketing Officer have touched virtually every aspect of the sports industry.
“Jon is a well-known, well respected difference maker with a track record of making organizations and people better,” said USGA CEO Mike Whan. “His vast experience in the game will be critical as we look to more deeply connect industry stakeholders to an even better future for our game. Jon and I have partnered before, and I love his passion for golf and his unwavering respect for the people in the industry – I am absolutely thrilled to call him my teammate!”
In his new role at the USGA, Podany will oversee corporate partnerships, hospitality, broadcast and digital media, communications, marketing, ticketing and merchandising.
I've never heard of the guy, so I've nothing to add except the trite observation that Whan has the right to surround himself with trusted confidants.
Of greater interest are the departures, one of whom inspired quite the rant from Geoff:
Podany takes two jobs that amounted to around $1 million in salary and were performed without competence or class. The previous departure of Navin Singh came on Whan’s first official day and now quietly exiting stage left is USGA “Chief Brand Officer” Craig Annis.
The Annis departure was revealed in a brief mention by Todd Kelly of Golfweek, reporting here on Podany’s hiring.
That’s appropriate in the sense we follow the USGA and their championships for the golf, not the brand. That said, this sad few years in USGA relations should be noted.
Growing up around college and pro sports I was lucky enough to tag along with my dad as he broadcast college and pro sports. Between that time and my years as a golf writer, I’ve met or dealt with hundreds public relations representatives, sports information directors and now, when they make over $400k a year, chief brand officers. Dating to those wild and crazy 1980s, I can name four that were either openly hostile to media or just not very nice people. The rest tend to be some of the nicer and more accommodating folks you’ll ever meet.
Of the four, three were in golf, one in baseball (and who has since become a friend and dabbles in golf media work). Of those three in golf, two worked for the USGA. Both were the two most recent heads of communication and are now former USGA employees: Craig Annis and Joe Goode.
In attempting to make the USGA more likable, Annis worked hard to stifle honest coverage, ran off golf people in favor of younger, brand-friendly, sycophantic types. The overall tone—as it is with so many PGA Tour efforts—is that golf is lame and needs coolness to make it marketable to advertisers.
While this mindset is hardly unusual in today’s world, Annis brought a special kind of edge, attempting to use business relationships with various media outlets to control messages and scare people out of traditional coverage. This only made the non-profit USGA even more inauthentic to even the dullest observer and suggested an overall vibe that the organization with something to hide.
There was also the effort to preach inclusiveness while saddling up next to outlets generally associated with a toxic boys club edge. While that clubby stuff may resonate with the sons of some Executive Committee members or their aggrieved dads longing for a better day when you can proudly look down on the less fortunate, this “brand” exuded a level of almost incomprehensible hypocrisy. Unless you came from a background of spinning candy bars as part of a healthy diet.
The result for the USGA, like NBC’s recent “televisual-vomit” approach to the Olympics, was a strange form of branding vomit. In attempting to please multiple factions by spraying slogans and spending all over the place, the only “brand message” you can take away from the Annis years was little faith in the organization’s core values.
This sentence from Annis’s USGA page should have been a harbinger of things to come":
"With an impactful leadership style, Craig successfully develops and grows capabilities and motivate others to get behind company directive and direction to create a positive effect on engagement and business growth."
Brand vomit.
I know that's a ridiculously long excerpt, but it's not often in our genteel golf bubble that we see an analyst go medieval quite like this. But Geoff's bit about the sense that golf is lame rings very true with me, never more so than when they dumbed down golf language in those 2019 rules revisions.
I'm still trying to get my arms around the USGA having a Chief Brand Officer, which seems really wrong. Not only do I get that the USGA has a brand (probably several, in fact) and hope that they recognize that they have a brand, because otherwise there's no impediment to devaluing said brand, but the title itself rankles this observer. But if you're gonna have a Chief Brand Officer, is it too much to expect that the game's governing body will at least find one that at least appreciates the history and culture of our game.
As a tease, I will let you know that the USGA is not the only golf organization in Geoff's crosshairs, though I'll save that next one for tomorrow. Have a great day and I'll look forward to seeing you then.
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